Prodigal Genius(C)1994 Brotherhood of Life, Inc., 110 Dartmouth,
SE, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87106 USA
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"SPECTACULAR" is a mild word for describing the
strange experiment with life that comprises the story of Nikola
Tesla, and "amazing" fails to do adequate justice to
the results that burst from his experiences like an exploding
rocket. It is the story of the dazzling scintillations of a superman
who created a new world; it is a story that condemns woman as
an anchor of the flesh which retards the development of man and
limits his accomplishment--and, paradoxically, proves that even
the most successful life, if it does not include a woman, is
a dismal failure.
Even the gods of old, in the wildest imaginings of their worshipers,
never undertook such gigantic tasks of world-wide dimension as
those which Tesla attempted and accomplished. On the basis of
his hopes, his dreams, and his achievements he rated the status
of the Olympian gods, and the Greeks would have so enshrined
him. Little is the wonder that so-called practical men, with
their noses stuck in profit-and-loss statements, did not understand
him and thought him strange.
The light of human progress is not a dim glow that gradually
becomes more luminous with time. The panorama of human evolution
is illumined by sudden bursts of dazzling brilliance in intellectual
accomplishments that throw their beams far ahead to give us a
glimpse of the distant future, that we may more correctly guide
our wavering steps today. Tesla, by virtue of the amazing discoveries
and inventions which he showered on the world, becomes one of
the most resplendent flashes that has ever brightened the scroll
of human advancement.
Tesla created the modern era; he was unquestionably one of
the world's greatest geniuses, but he leaves no offspring, no
legatees of his brilliant mind, who might aid in administering
that world; he created fortunes for multitudes of others but
himself died penniless, spurning wealth that might be gained
from his discoveries. Even as he walked among the teeming millions
of New York he became a fabled individual who seemed to belong
to the far-distant future or to have come to us from the mystical
realm of the gods, for he seemed to be an admixture of a Jupiter
or a Thor who hurled the shafts of lightning; an Ajax who defied
the Jovian bolts; a Prometheus who transmuted energy into electricity
to spread over the earth; an Aurora who would light the skies
as a terrestrial electric lamp; a Mazda who created a sun in
a tube; a Hercules who shook the earth with his mechanical vibrators;
a Mercury who bridged the ambient realms of space with his wireless
waves--and a Hermes who gave birth to an electrical soul in the
earth that set it pulsating from pole to pole.
This spark of intellectual incandescence, in the form of a
rare creative genius, shot like a meteor into the midst of human
society in the latter decades of the past century; and he lived
almost until today. His name became synonymous with magic in
the intellectual, scientific, engineering and social worlds,
and he was recognized as an inventor and discoverer of unrivaled
greatness. He made the electric current his slave. At a time
when electricity was considered almost an occult force, and was
looked upon with terror-stricken awe and respect, Tesla penetrated
deeply into its mysteries and performed so many marvelous feats
with it that, to the world, he became a master magician with
an unlimited repertoire of scientific legerdemain so spectacular
that it made the accomplishments of most of the inventors of
his day seem like the work of toy-tinkers.
Tesla was an inventor, but he was much more than a producer
of new devices: he was a discoverer of new principles, opening
many new empires of knowledge which even today have been only
partly explored. In a single mighty burst of invention he created
the world of power of today; he brought into being our electrical
power era, the rock-bottom foundation on which the industrial
system of the entire world is builded; he gave us our mass-production
system, for without his motors and currents it could not exist;
he created the race of robots, the electrical mechanical men
that are replacing human labor; he gave us every essential of
modern radio; he invented the radar forty years before its use
in World War II; he gave us our modern neon and other forms of
gaseous-tube lighting; he gave us our fluorescent lighting; he
gave us the high-frequency currents which are performing their
electronic wonders throughout the industrial and medical worlds;
he gave us remote control by wireless; he helped give us World
War II, much against his will--for the misuse of his superpower
system and his robot controls in industry made it possible for
politicians to have available a tremendous surplus of power,
production facilities, labor and materials, with which to indulge
in the most frightful devastating war that the maniacal mind
could conceive. And these discoveries are merely the inventions
made by the master mind of Tesla which have thus far been utilized--scores
of others remain still unused.
Yet Tesla lived and labored to bring peace to the world. He
dedicated his life to lifting the burdens from the shoulders
of mankind; to bringing a new era of peace, plenty and happiness
to the human race. Seeing the coming of World War II, implemented
and powered by his discoveries, he sought to prevent it; offered
the world a device which he maintained would make any country,
no matter how small, safe within its borders--and his offer was
rejected.
More important by far, however, than all his stupendously
significant electrical discoveries is that supreme invention--Nikola
Tesla the Superman--the human instrument which shoved the world
forward with an accelerating lunge like an airplane cast into
the sky from a catapult. Tesla, the scientist and inventor, was
himself an invention, just as much as was his alternating-current
system that put the world on a superpower basis.
Tesla was a superman, a self-made superman, invented and designed
specifically to perform wonders; and he achieved them in a volume
far beyond the capacity of the world to absorb. His life he designed
on engineering principles to enable him to serve as an automaton,
with utmost efficiency, for the discovery and application of
the forces of Nature to human welfare. To this end he sacrificed
love and pleasure, seeking satisfaction only in his accomplishments,
and limiting his body solely to serving as a tool of his technically
creative mind.
With our modern craze for division of labor and specialization
of effort to gain efficiency of production in our industrial
machine, one hesitates to think of a future in which Tesla's
invention of the superman might be applied to the entire human
race, with specialization designed for every individual from
birth.
The superman that Tesla designed was a scientific saint. The
inventions that this scientific martyr produced were designed
for the peace, happiness and security of the human race, but
they have been applied to create scarcity, depressions and devastating
war. Suppose the superman invention were also developed and prostituted
to the purposes of war-mongering politicians? Tesla glimpsed
the possibilities and suggested the community life of the bee
as a threat to our social structure unless the elements of individual
and community lives are properly directed and personal freedom
protected.
Tesla's superman was a marvelously successful invention--for
Tesla--which seemed, as far as the world could observe, to function
satisfactorily. He eliminated love from his life; eliminated
women even from his thoughts. He went beyond Plato, who conceived
of a spiritual companionship between man and woman free from
sexual desires; he eliminated even the spiritual companionship.
He designed the isolated life into which no woman and no man
could enter; the self-suficient individuality from which all
sex considerations were completely eliminated; the genius who
would live entirely as a thinking and a working machine.
Tesla's superman invention was a producer of marvels, and
he thought that he had, by scientific methods, succeeded in eliminating
love from his life. That abnormal life makes a fascinating experiment
for the consideration of the philosopher and psychologist, for
he did not succeed in eliminating love. It manifested itself
despite his conscientious efforts at suppression; and when it
did so it came in the most fantastic form, providing a romance
the like of which is not recorded in the annals of human history.
Tesla's whole life seems unreal, as if he were a fabled creature
of some Olympian world. A reporter, after writing a story of
his discoveries and inventions, concluded, "His accomplishments
seem like the dream of an intoxicated god." It was Tesla's
invention of the polyphase alternating-current system that was
directly responsible for harnessing Niagara Falls and opened
the modern electrical superpower era in which electricity is
transported for hundred of miles, to operate the tens of thousands
of mass-production factories of industrial systems. Every one
of the tall Martian-like towers of the electrical transmission
lines that stalk across the earth, and whose wires carry electricity
to distant cities, is a monument to Tesla; every powerhouse,
every dynamo and every motor that drives every machine in the
country is a monument to him.
Superseding himself, he discovered the secret of transmitting
electrical power to the utmost ends of the earth without wires,
and demonstrated his system by which useful amounts of power
could be drawn from the earth anywhere merely by making a connection
to the ground; he set the entire earth in electrical vibration
with a generator which spouted lightning that rivaled the fiery
artillery of the heavens. It was as a minor portion of this discovery
that he created the modern radio system; he planned our broadcasting
methods of today, forty years ago when others saw in wireless
only the dot-dash messages that might save ships in distress.
He produced lamps of greater brilliance and economy than those
in common use today; he invented the tube, fluorescent and wireless
lamps which we now consider such up-to-the-minute developments;
and he essayed to set the entire atmosphere of the earth aglow
with his electric currents, to change our world into a single
terrestrial lamp and to make the skies at night shine as does
the sun by day.
If other first-magnitude inventors and discoverers may be
considered torches of progress, Tesla was a conflagration. He
was the vehicle through which the blazing suns of a brighter
tomorrow focused their incandescent beams on a world that was
not prepared to receive their light. Nor is it remarkable that
this radiant personality should have led a strange and isolated
life. The value of his contributions to society cannot be overrated.
we can now analyze, to some extent, the personality that produced
them. He stands as a synthetic genius, a self-made superman,
the greatest invention of the greatest inventor of all times.
But when we consider Tesla as a human being, apart from his charming
and captivating social manners, it is hard to imagine a worse
nightmare than a world inhabited entirely by geniuses.
When Nature makes an experiment and achieves an improvement
it is necessary that it be accomplished in such a way that the
progress will not be lost with the individual but will be passed
on to future generations. In man, this requires a utilization
of the social values of the race, cooperation of the individual
with his kind, that the improved status may be propagated and
become a legacy of all. Tesla intentionally engineered love and
women out of his life, and while he achieved gigantic intellectual
stature, he failed to achieve its perpetuation either through
his own progeny or through disciples. The superman he constructed
was not great enough to embrace a wife and continue to exist
as such. The love he sought to suppress in his life, and which
he thought was associated only with women, is a force which,
in its various aspects, links together all members of the human
race.
In seeking to suppress this force entirely Tesla severed the
bonds which might have brought to him the disciples who would,
through other channels, have perpetuated the force of his prodigal
genius. As a result, he succeeded in imparting to the world only
the smallest fraction of the creative products of his synthetic
superman.
The creation of a superman as demonstrated by Tesla was a
grand experiment in human evolution, well worthy of the giant
intellect that grew out of it, but it did not come up to Nature's
standards; and the experiment will have to be made many times
more before we learn how to create a super race with the minds
of Teslas that can tap the hidden treasury of Nature's store
of knowledge, yet endowed too with the vital power of love that
will unlock forces, more powerful than any which we now glimpse,
for advancing the status of the human race.
There was no evidence whatever that a superman was being born
when the stroke of midnight between July 9 and 10, in the
year 1856, brought a son, Nikola, to the home of the Rev. Milutin
Tesla and Djouka, his wife, in the hamlet of Smiljan, in the
Austro-Hungarian border province of Lika, now a part of Yugoslavia.
The father of the new arrival, pastor of the village church,
was a former student in an oficers' training school who had rebelled
against the restrictions of Army life and turned to the ministry
as the field in which he could more satisfactorily express himself.
The mother, although totally unable to read or write, was nevertheless
an intellectually brilliant woman, who without the help of literal
aids became really well educated.
Both father and mother contributed to the child a valuable
heritage of culture developed and passed on by ancestral families
that had been community leaders for many generations. The father
came from a family that contributed sons in equal numbers to
the Church and to the Army. The mother was a member of the Mandich
family whose sons, for generations without number, had, with
very few exceptions, become ministers of the Serbian Orthodox
Church, and whose daughters were chosen as wives by ministers.
Djouka, the mother of Nikola Tesla (her given name in English
translation would be Georgina), was the eldest daughter in a
family of seven children. Her father, like her husband, was a
minister of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Her mother, after a
period of failing eyesight, had become blind shortly after the
seventh child was born; so Djouka, the eldest daughter, at a
tender age was compelled to take over the major share of her
mother's duties. This not alone prevented her from attending
school: her work at home so completely consumed her time that
she was unable to acquire even the rudiments of reading and writing
through home study. This was a strange situation in the cultured
family of which she was a member. Tesla, however, always credited
his unlettered mother rather than his erudite father with being
the source from which he inherited his inventive ability. She
devised many household labor-saving instruments. She was, in
addition, a very practical individual, and her well-educated
husband wisely left in her hands all business matters involving
both the church and his household.
An unusually retentive memory served this remarkable woman
as a good substitute for literacy. As the family moved in cultured
circles she absorbed by ear much of the cultural riches of the
community. She could repeat, without error or omission, thousands
of verses of the national poetry of her country--the sagas of
the Serbs--and could recite long passages from the Bible. She
could narrate from memory the entire poetical- philosophical
work Gorski ffenac (Mountain fireath), written by Bishop Petrovich
Njegosh. She also possessed artistic talent and a versatile dexterity
in her fingers for expressing it. She earned wide fame throughout
the countryside for her beautiful needlework. According to Tesla,
so great were her dexterity and her patience that she could,
when over sixty, using only her fingers, tie three knots in an
eyelash.
The remarkable abilities of this clever woman who had no formal
education were transmitted to her five children. The elder son,
Dane Tesla, born seven years before Nikola, was the family favorite
because of the promise of an outstanding career which his youthful
cleverness indicated was in store for him. He foreshadowed in
his early years the strange manifestations which in his surviving
brother were a prelude to greatness.
Tesla's father started his career in the military service,
a likely choice for the son of an oficer; but he apparently did
not inherit his father's liking for Army life. So slight an incident
as criticism for failure to keep his brass buttons brightly polished
caused him to leave military school. He was probably more of
a poet and philosopher than a soldier. He wrote poetry which
was published in contemporary papers. He also wrote articles
on current problems which he signed with a pseudonym, "Srbin
Pravicich." This, in Serb, means "Man of Justice."
He spoke, read and wrote Serbo-Croat, German and Italian. It
was probably his interest in poetry and philosophy that caused
him to be attracted to Djouka Mandich. She was twenty-five and
Milutin was two years older. He married her in 1847. His attraction
to the daughter of a pastor probably influenced his next choice
of a career, for he then entered the ministry and was soon ordained
a priest.
He was made pastor of the church at Senj, an important seaport
with facilities for a cultural life. He gave satisfaction, but
apparently he achieved success among his parishioners on the
basis of a pleasing personality and an understanding of problems
rather than by using any great erudition in theological and ecclesiastical
matters.
A few years after he was placed in charge of this parish,
a new archbishop, elevated to head of the diocese, wished to
survey the capabilities of the priests in his charge and offered
a prize for the best sermon preached on his oficial visit. The
Rev. Milutin Tesla was bubbling over, at the time, with interest
in labor as a major factor in social and economic problems. To
preach a sermon on this topic was, from the viewpoint of expediency,
a totally impractical thing to do. Nobody, however, had ever
accused the Rev. Mr. Tesla of being practical, so doing the impractical
thing was quite in harmony with his nature. He chose the subject
which held his greatest interest; and when the archbishop arrived,
he listened to a sermon on "Labor."
Months later Senj was surprised by an unanticipated visit
from the archbishop, who announced that the Rev. Mr. Tesla had
preached the best sermon, and awarded him a red sash which he
was privileged to wear on all occasions. Shortly afterward he
was made pastor at Smiljan, where his parish then embraced forty
homes. He was later placed in charge of the much larger parish
in the nearby city of Gospic. His first three children, Milka,
Dane and Angelina, were born at Senj. Nikola and his younger
sister, Marica, were born at Smiljan.
Tesla's early environment, then, was that of an agricultural
community in a high plateau region near the eastern shore of
the Adriatic Sea in the Velebit Mountains, a part of the Alps,
a mountain chain stretching from Switzerland to Greece. He did
not see his first steam locomotive until he was in his `teens,
so his aptitude for mechanical matters did not grow out of his
environment.
Tesla's homeland is today called Yugoslavia, a country whose
name means "Land of the Southern Slavs." It embraces
several former separate countries, Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro,
Dalmatia and also Slovenia. The Tesla and Mandich families originally
came from the western part of Serbia near Montenegro. Smiljan,
the village where Tesla was born, is in the province of Lika,
and at the time of his birth this was a dependent province held
by the Austro-Hungarian Empire as part of Croatia and Slovenia.
Tesla's surname dates back more than two and a half centuries.
Before that time the family name was Draganic (pronounced as
if spelled Drag'-a-nitch). The name Tesla (pronounced as spelled,
with equal emphasis on both syllables), in a purely literal sense,
is a trade name like Smith, firight or Carpenter. As a common
noun it describes a woodworking tool which, in English, is called
an adz. This is an axe with a broad cutting blade at right angles
to the handle, instead of parallel as in the more familiar form.
It is used in cutting large tree trunks into squared timbers.
In the Serbo-Croat language, the name of the tool is tesla. There
is a tradition in the Draganic family that the members of one
branch were given the nickname "Tesla" because of an
inherited trait which caused practically all of them to have
very large, broad and protruding front teeth which greatly resembled
the triangular blade of the adz.
The name Draganic and derivatives of it appear frequently
in other branches of the Tesla family as a given name. When used
as a given name it is frequently translated "Charlotte,"
but as a generic term it holds the meaning "dear" and
as a surname is translated "Darling."
The majority of Tesla's ancestors for whom age records are
available lived well beyond the average span of life for their
times, but no definite record has been found of the ancestor
who, Tesla claimed, lived to be one hundred and forty years of
age. (His father died at the age of fifty-nine, and his mother
at seventy-one.)
Although many of Tesla's ancestors were dark eyed, his eyes
were a gray-blue. He claimed his eyes were originally darker,
but that as a result of the excessive use of his brain their
color changed. His mother's eyes, however, were gray and so are
those of some of his nephews. It is probable, therefore, that
his gray eyes were inherited, rather than faded by excessive
use of the brain.
Tesla grew to be very tall and very slender--tallness was
a family and a national trait. When he attained full growth he
was exactly two meters, or six feet two and one-quarter inches
tall. while his body was slender, it was built within normal
proportions. His hands, however, and particularly his thumbs,
seemed unusually long.
Nikola's older brother Dane was a brilliant boy and his parents
gloried in their good fortune in being blessed with such a fine
son. There was, however, a difference of seven years in the two
boys' ages, and since the elder brother died as the result of
an accident at the age of twelve, when Nikola was but five years
old, a fair comparison of the two seems hardly possible. The
loss of their first-born son was a great blow to his mother and
father; the grief and regrets of the family were manifest in
idealizing his talents and predicting possibilities of greatness
he might have realized, and this situation was a challenge to
Nikola in his youth.
The superman Tesla developed out of the superboy Nikola. Forced
to rise above the normal level by an urge to carry on for his
dearly beloved departed brother, and also on his own account
to exceed the great accomplishment his brother might have attained
had he lived, he unconsciously drew upon strange resources within.
The existence of these resources might have remained unsuspected
for a lifetime, as happens with the run of individuals, if Nikola
had not felt the necessity for creating a larger sphere of life
for himself.
He was aware as a boy that he was not like other boys in his
thoughts, in his amusements and in his hobbies. He could do the
things that other lads his age usually do, and many things that
they could not do. It was these latter things that interested
him most, and he could find no companions who would share his
enthusiasms for them. This situation caused him to isolate himself
from contemporaries, and made him aware that he was destined
for an unusual place if not great accomplishments in life. His
boyish mind was continually exploring realms which his years
had not reached, and his boyhood attainments frequently were
worthy of men of mature age.
He had, of course, the usual experience of unusual incidents
that fall to the lot of a small boy. One of the earliest events
which Tesla recalled was a fall into a tank of hot milk that
was being scalded in the process used by the natives of that
region as a hygienic measure, anticipating the modern process
of pasteurizing.
Shortly afterward he was accidentally locked in a remote mountain
chapel which was visited only at widely separated intervals.
He spent the night in the small building before his absence was
discovered and his possible hiding place determined.
Living close to Nature, with ample opportunity for observing
the flight of birds, which has ever filled men with envy, he
did what many another boy has done with the same results. An
umbrella, plus imagination, offered to him a certain solution
of the problem of free flight through the air. The roof of a
barn was his launching platform. The umbrella was large, but
its condition was much the worse for many years of service; it
turned inside out before the flight was well started. No bones
were broken, but he was badly shaken up and spent the next six
weeks in bed. Probably, though, he had better reason for making
this experiment than most of the others who have tried it. He
revealed that practically all his life he experienced a peculiar
reaction when breathing deeply. When he breathed deeply he was
overcome by a feeling of lightness, as if his body had lost all
weight; and he should, he concluded, be able to fly through the
air merely by his will to do so. He did not learn, in boyhood,
that he was unusual in this respect.
One day when he was in his fifth year, one of his chums received
a gift of a fishing line, and all the boys in the group planned
a fishing trip. On that day he was on the outs with his chums
for some unremembered reason. As a result, he was informed he
could not join them. He was not permitted even to see the fishing
line at close range. He had glimpsed, however, the general idea
of a hook on the end of a string. In a short time he had fashioned
his own interpretation of a hook. The refinement of a barb had
not occurred to him and he also failed to evolve the theory of
using bait when he went off on his own fishing expedition. The
baitless hook failed to attract any fish but, while dangling
in the air, much to Tesla's surprise and satisfaction it snared
a frog that leaped at it. He came home with a bag of nearly two
dozen frogs. It may have been a day on which the fish were not
biting, but at any rate his chums came home from the use of their
new hook and line without any fish. His triumph was complete.
When he later revealed his technique, all the boys in the neighborhood
copied his hook and method, and in a short time the frog population
of the region was greatly depleted.
The contents of birds' nests always excited Tesla's curiosity.
He rarely disturbed their contents or occupants. On one occasion,
however, he climbed a rocky crag to investigate an eagle's nest
and took from it a baby eagle which he kept locked in a barn.
A bird on the wing he considered fair prey for his sling shot,
with which he was a star performer.
About this time he became intrigued with a piece of hollow
tube cut from a cane growing in the neighborhood. This he played
with until he had evolved a blow gun and later, by making a plunger
and plugging one end of the tube with a wad of wet hemp, a pop
gun. He then undertook the making of larger pop guns, and contrived
one in which the end of the plunger was held against the chest
and the tube pulled energetically toward the body. He engaged
in the manufacture of this article for his chums, as a five-year-old
businessman. When a number of window panes happened to get broken
accidentally by getting in the way of his hemp wad, his inventive
proclivities in this field were quickly curbed by the destruction
of the pop guns and the administration of the parental rod.
Tesla started his formal education by attending the village
school in Smiljan before he reached his fifth birthday. A few
years later his father received his appointment as pastor of
a church in the nearby city of Gospic, so the family moved there.
This was a sad day for young Tesla. He had lived close to Nature,
and loved the open country and the high mountains among which
he had thus far spent all of his life. The sudden transition
to the artificialities of the city was a very definite shock
to him. He was out of harmony with his new surroundings.
His advent into the city life of Gospic, at the age of seven,
got off to an unfortunate start. As the new minister in town,
his father was anxious to have everything move smoothly. Tesla
was required to dress in his best clothes and attend the Sunday
services. Naturally, he dreaded this ordeal and was very happy
when assigned the task of ringing the bell summoning the worshipers
to the service and announcing the close of the ceremonies. This
gave him an opportunity to remain unseen in the belfry while
the parishioners, their daughters and dude sons were arriving
and departing.
Thinking he had waited long enough after the close of the
service for the church to be cleared on this first Sunday, he
came downstairs three steps at a time. A wealthy woman parishioner
wearing a skirt with a long train that fashionably dragged along
the ground, and who had come to the service with a retinue of
servants, remained after the other parishioners to have a talk
with the new pastor. She was just making an impressive exit when
Tesla's final jump down the stairs landed him on the train, ripping
this dignity-preserving appendage from the woman's dress. Her
mortification and rage and his father's anger came upon him simultaneously.
Parishioners loitering outside rushed back to revel in the spectacle.
Thereafter no one dared be pleasant to this youngster who had
enraged the wealthy dowager who domineered it over the social
community. He was practically ostracized by the parishioners,
and continued so until he redeemed himself in a spectacular manner.
Tesla felt strange and defeated in his ignorance of city ways.
He met the situation first by avoidance. He did not care to leave
his home. The boys of his age were neatly dressed every day.
They were dudes and he did not belong. Even as a child Tesla
was meticulously careful in dress. At the earliest moment, however,
he would slip work clothes over his dress clothes and go wandering
in the woods or engage in mechanical work. He could not enjoy
life if limited to the activities in which he could engage while
dressed up. Tesla, however, possessed ingenuity, and there was
rarely a situation in which he was not able to use it. He also
possessed knowledge of the ways of Nature. These gave him a distinct
superiority over the city boys.
About a year after the family moved to Gospic a new fire company
was organized. It was to be supplied with a pump which would
replace the useful but inadequate bucket brigade. The members
of the new organization obtained brightly colored uniforms and
practiced marching for parades. Eventually the new pump arrived.
It was a man-power pump to be operated by sixteen men. A parade
and demonstration of the new apparatus was arranged. Almost everyone
in Gospic turned out for the event and followed to the river
front for the pump demonstration. Tesla was among them. He paid
no attention to the speeches but was all eyes for the brightly
painted apparatus. He did not know how it worked but would have
loved to take it apart and investigate the insides.
The time for the demonstration came when the last speaker,
finishing his dedicatory address, gave the order to start the
pumping operation that would send a stream of water shooting
skyward from the nozzle. The eight men regimented on either side
of the pump bowed and rose in alternate unison as they raised
and lowered the bars that operated the pistons of the pump. But
nothing else happened, not a drop of water came from the nozzle!
Oficials of the fire company started feverishly to make adjustments
and, after each attempt, set the sixteen men oscillating up and
down at the pump handles, but each time without results. The
lines of hose between the pump and the nozzle were straightened
out, they were disconnected from the pump and connected again.
But no water came from the far end of the hose to reward the
efforts of the perspiring firemen.
Tesla was among the usual group of urchins that always manages
to get inside the lines on such occasions. He tried to see everything
that was going on from the closest possible vantage point and
undoubtedly got on the nerves of the vexed oficials when their
repeated efforts were frustrated by continuous failures. As one
of the oficials turned for the tenth time to vent his frustration
on the urchins and order them away from his range of action,
Tesla grabbed him by the arm.
"I know what to do, Mister," said Tesla. "you
keep pumping."
Dashing for the river, Tesla peeled his clothes off quickly
and dove into the water. He swam to the suction hose that was
supposed to draw the water supply from the river. He found it
kinked, so that no water could flow into it, and flattened by
the vacuum created by the pumping. When he straightened out the
kink, the water rushed into the line. The nozzlemen had stood
at their post for a long time, receiving a continuous repetition
of warnings to be prepared each time an adjustment was made,
but, as nothing happened on these successive occasions, they
had gradually relaxed their attention and were giving little
thought to the direction in which the nozzle was pointed. When
the stream of water did shoot skyward, down it came on the assembled
oficials and townspeople. This item of unexpected drama excited
the crowd at the other end of the line near the pump, and to
give vent to their joy they seized the scantily dressed Tesla,
boosted him to the shoulders of a couple of the firemen, and
led a procession around the town. The seven-year-old Tesla was
the hero of the day.
Later on Tesla, in explaining the incident, said that he had
had not the faintest idea of how the pump worked; but as he watched
the men struggle with it, he got an intuitive flash of knowledge
that told him to go to the hose in the river. On looking back
to that event, he said, he knew how Archimedes must have felt
when, after discovering the law of the displacement of water
by floating objects, he ran naked through the streets of Syracuse
shouting "Eureka!
At the age of seven Tesla had tasted the pleasures of public
acclaim
for his ingenuity. And further, he had done something which
the dudes, the boys of his age in the city, could not do and
which even their fathers could not do. He had found himself.
He was now a hero, and it could be forgotten that he had jumped
on a woman's skirt and ripped the train off.
Tesla never lost an opportunity to hike through the nearby
mountains where he could again enjoy the pleasures of his earlier
years spent so close to Nature. On these occasions he would often
wonder if there was still operating a crude water wheel which
he made and installed, when he was less than five years old,
across the mountain brook near his home in Smiljan.
The wheel consisted of a not too well-smoothed disk cut from
a tree trunk in some lumbering operations. Through its center
he was able to cut a hole and force into it a somewhat straight
branch of a tree, the ends of which he rested in two sticks with
crotches which he forced into the rock on either bank of the
brook. This arrangement permitted the lower part of the disk
to dip in the water and the current caused it to rotate. To the
lad there was a great deal of originality employed in making
this ancient device. The wheel wobbled a bit but to him it was
a marvelous piece of construction, and he got no end of pleasure
out of watching his water wheel obtain power from the brook.
This experiment undoubtedly made a life-long impression on
his young plastic mind and endowed him with the desire, ever
afterward manifested in his work, of obtaining power from Nature's
sources which are always being dissipated and always being replenished.
In this smooth-disk water wheel we find an early clue to his
later invention of the smooth-disk turbine. In his later experience
he discovered that all water wheels have paddles--but his little
water wheel had operated without paddles.
Tesla's first experiment in original methods of power production
was made when he was nine years old. It demonstrated his ingenuity
and originality, if nothing else. It was a sixteen-bug-power
engine. He took two thin slivers of wood, as thick as a toothpick
and several times as long, and glued them together in the form
of a cross, so they looked like the arms of a windmill. At the
point of intersection they were glued to a spindle made of another
thin sliver of wood. On this he slipped a very small pulley with
about the diameter of a pea. A piece of thread acting as a driving
belt was slipped over this and also around the circumference
of a much larger but light pulley which was also mounted on a
thin spindle. The power for this machine was furnished by sixteen
May bugs (June bugs in the United States). He had collected a
jar full of the insects, which were very much of a pest in the
neighborhood. With a little dab of glue four bugs were afixed,
heading in the same direction, to each of the four arms of the
windmill arrangement. The bugs beat their wings, and if they
had been free would have flown away at high speed. They were,
however, attached to the cross arms, so instead they pulled them
around at high speed. These, being connected by the thread belt
to the large pulley, caused the latter to turn at low speed;
but it developed, Tesla reports, a surprisingly large torque,
or turning power.
Proud of his bug-power motor and its continuous operation--the
bugs did not cease flying for hours--he called in one of the
boys in the neighborhood to admire it. The lad was a son of an
Army oficer. The visitor was amused for a short time by the bug
motor, until he spied the jar of still unused May bugs. Without
hesitation he opened the jar, fished out the bugs--and ate them.
This so nauseated Tesla that he chased the boy out of the house
and destroyed the bug motor. For years he could not tolerate
the sight of May bugs without a return of this unpleasant reaction.
This event greatly annoyed Tesla because he had planned to
add more spindles to the shaft and stick on more fliers until
he had more than a one-hundred-bug-power motor.
TESLA'S years in school were more important for the activities
in which he engaged in after-school hours than for what he learned
in the classroom. At the age of ten, having finished his elementary
studies in the Normal School, Tesla entered the college, called
the Real Gymnasium, at Gospic. This was not an unusually early
age to enter the Real Gymnasium, as that school corresponds more
to our grammar school and junior high school than to our college.
One of the requirements, and one to which an unusually large
percentage of the class time was devoted throughout the four
years, was freehand drawing. Tesla detested the subject almost
to the point of open rebellion, and his marks were accordingly
very low, but not entirely owing to a lack of ability.
Tesla was left-handed as a boy, but later became ambidextrous.
Left-handedness was a definite handicap in the freehand-drawing
studies, but he could have done much better work than he actually
produced and would have gotten higher marks if it were not for
a piece of altruism in which he engaged. A student whom he could
excel in drawing was striving hard for a scholarship. Were he
to receive the lowest marks in freehand drawing, he would be
unable to obtain the scholarship. Tesla sought to help his fellow
student by intentionally getting the lowest rating in the small
class.
Mathematics was his favorite subject and he distinguished
himself in that study. His unusual proficiency in this field
was not considered a counterbalancing virtue to make amends for
his lack of enthusiasm for freehand drawing. A strange power
permitted him to perform unusual feats in mathematics. He possessed
it from early boyhood, but had considered it a nuisance and tried
to be rid of it because it seemed beyond his control.
If he thought of an object it would appear before him exhibiting
the appearance of solidity and massiveness. So greatly did these
visions possess the attributes of actual objects that it was
usually dificult for him to distinguish between vision and reality.
This abnormal faculty functioned in a very useful fashion in
his school work with mathematics.
If he was given a problem in arithmetic or algebra, it was
immaterial to him whether he went to the blackboard to work it
out or whether he remained in his seat. His strange faculty permitted
him to see a visioned blackboard on which the problem was written,
and there appeared on this blackboard all of the operations and
symbols required in working out the solution. Each step appeared
much more rapidly than he could work it out by hand on the actual
slate. As a result, he could give the solution almost as quickly
as the whole problem was stated.
His teachers, at first, had some doubts about his honesty,
thinking he had worked out some clever deceit for getting the
right answers. In due time their skepticism was dispelled and
they accepted him as a student who was unusually apt at mental
arithmetic. He would not reveal this power to anyone and would
discuss it only with his mother, who in the past had encouraged
him in his efforts to banish it. Now that the power had demonstrated
some definite usefulness, though, he was not so anxious to be
completely rid of it, but desired to bring it under his complete
control.
Work that Tesla did outside school hours interested him much
more than his school work. He was a rapid reader and had a memory
that was retentive to the point, almost, of infallibility. He
found it easy to acquire foreign languages. In addition to his
native Serbo-Croat language he became proficient in the use of
German, French and Italian. This opened to him great stores of
knowledge to which other students did not have access, yet this
knowledge, apparently, was of little use to him in his school
work. He was interested in things mechanical but the school provided
no manual training course. Nevertheless, he became proficient
in the working of wood and metals with tools and methods of his
own contriving.
In the classroom of one of the upper grades of the Real Gymnasium
models of water wheels were on exhibition. They were not working
models but nevertheless they aroused Tesla's enthusiasm. They
recalled to him the crude wheel he had constructed in the hills
of Smiljan. He had seen pictures of the magnificent Niagara Falls.
Coupling the power possibilities presented by the majestic waterfalls
and the intriguing possibilities he saw in the models of the
water wheels, he aroused in himself a passion to accomplish a
grand achievement. Waxing eloquent on the subject, he told his
father, "Some day I am going to America and harness Niagara
Falls to produce power." Thirty years later he was to see
this prediction fulfilled.
There were many books in his father's library. The knowledge
in those books interested him more than that which he received
in school and he wished to spend his evenings reading them. As
in other matters, he carried this to an extreme, so his father
forbade him to read them, fearing that he would ruin his eyes
in the poor light of tallow candles then used for illumination.
Nikola sought to circumvent this ruling by taking candles to
his room and reading after he was sent to bed, but his violation
of orders was soon discovered and the family candle supply was
hidden. Next he fashioned a candle mould out of a piece of tin
and made his own candles. Then, by plugging the keyhole and the
chinks around the door, he was able to spend the night hours
reading volumes purloined from his father's bookshelves. Frequently,
he said, he would read through the entire night and feel none
the worse for the loss of sleep. Eventual discovery, however,
brought paternal discipline of a vigorous nature. He was about
eleven years old at this time.
Like other boys of his age he played with bows and arrows.
He made bigger bows, and better, straighter shooting arrows,
and his marksmanship was excellent. He was not willing to stop
at that point. He started building arbalists. These could be
described as bow-and-arrow guns. The bow is mounted on a frame
and the string pulled back and caught on a peg from which it
is released by a trigger. The arrow is laid on the midpoint of
the bow, its end against the taut string. The bow lies horizontal
on the frame whereas in ordinary manual shooting the bow is held
in vertical position. For this reason the device is sometimes
called the crossbow. In setting an arbalist the beam is placed
against the abdomen and the string pulled back with all possible
force. Tesla did this so often, he said, that his skin at the
point of pressure became calloused until it was more like a crocodile's
hide. When shot into the air the arrows from his arbalist were
never recovered, for they went far out of sight. At close range
they would pass through a pine board an inch thick.
Tesla got a thrill out of archery not experienced by other
boys. He was, in imagination, riding those arrows which he shot
out of sight into the blue vault of the heavens. That sense of
exhilaration he experienced when breathing deeply gave him such
a feeling of lightness he convinced himself that in this state
it would be relatively easy for him to fly through the air if
he only could devise some mechanical aid that would launch him
and enable him to overcome what he thought was only a slight
remaining weight in his body. His earlier disastrous jump from
the barn roof had not disillusioned him. His conclusions were
in keeping with his sensations; but a twelve-year-old lad exploring
this dificult field alone cannot be condemned too severely for
not discovering that our senses sometimes deceive us, or rather
that we sometimes deceive ourselves in interpreting what our
senses tell us.
In breathing deeply he was overventilating his lungs, taking
out some of the residual carbon dioxide which is chemical "ashes,"
and largely inert, and replacing it with air containing a mixture
of equally inert nitrogen and very active oxygen. The latter
being present in more than normal proportions immediately began
to upset chemical balances throughout the body. The reaction
on the brain produces a result which does not differ greatly
from alcohol intoxication. A number of cults use this procedure
to induce "mystical" or "occult" experiences.
How was a twelve-year-old boy to know all these things? He could
see that birds did an excellent job in flying. He was convinced
that some day man would fly, and he wanted to produce the machine
that would get him off the ground and into the air.
The big idea came to him when he learned about the vacuum--a
space within a container from which all air had been exhausted.
He learned that every object exposed to the air was under a pressure
of about fourteen pounds per square inch, while in a vacuum objects
were free of such pressure. He figured that a pressure of fourteen
pounds should turn a cylinder at high speed and he could arrange
to get advantage of such pressure by surrounding one half of
a cylinder with a vacuum and having the remaining half of its
surface exposed to air pressure. He carefully built a box of
wood. At one end was an opening into which a cylinder was fitted
with a very high order of accuracy, so that the box would be
airtight; and on one side of the cylinder the edge of the box
made a right-angle contact. On the cylinder's other side the
box made a tangent, or flat, contact. This arrangement was made
because he wanted the air pressure to be exerted at a tangent
to the surface of the cylinder--a situation that he knew would
be required in order to produce rotation. If he could get that
cylinder to rotate, all he would have to do in order to fly would
be to attach a propeller to a shaft from the cylinder, strap
the box to his body and obtain continuous power from his vacuum
box that would lift him through the air. His theory of course
was fallacious, but he had no means of knowing that at the time.
The workmanship on this box was undoubtedly of a very high
order, considering it was made by a self-instructed twelve-year-old
mechanic. When he connected his vacuum pump, an ordinary air
pump with its valves reversed, he found the box was airtight,
so he pulled out all the air, watching the cylinder intently
while doing so. Nothing happened for many strokes of the pump
except that it made his back lame to pull the pump handle upward
while he created the most "powerful" possible vacuum.
He rested for a moment. He was breathing deeply from exertion,
overventilating his lungs, and getting that joyous, dizzy, light-as-air
feeling which was a highly satisfactory mental environment for
his experiment.
Suddenly the cylinder started to turn--slowly! His experiment
was a success! His vacuum-power box was working! He would fly!
Tesla was delirious with joy. He went into a state of ecstasy.
There was no one with whom he could share this joy, as he had
taken no one into his confidence. It was his secret and he was
forced to endure its joys alone. The cylinder continued to turn
slowly. It was no hallucination. It was real. It did not speed
up, however, and this was disappointing. He had visualized it
turning at a tremendous speed but it was actually turning extremely
slowly. His idea, at least, he figured, was correct. With a little
better workmanship, perhaps he could make the cylinder turn faster.
He stood spellbound watching it turn at a snail's pace for less
than half a minute--and then the cylinder stopped. That broke
the spell and ended for the time his mental air flights.
He hunted for the trouble and quickly located what he was
sure was the cause of the dificulty. Since the vacuum, he theorized,
is the source of power, then, if the power stops, it must be
because the vacuum is gone. His pump, he felt sure, must be leaking
air. He pulled up the handle. It came up easily and that meant
very definitely he had lost the vacuum in the box. He again pumped
out the air--and again when he reached a high vacuum the cylinder
started to turn slowly and continued to do so for a fraction
of a minute. When it stopped he again pumped a vacuum and again
the cylinder turned. This time he continued to operate the pump
and the cylinder continued to turn. He could keep it turning
as long as he desired by continuing to pump the vacuum.
There was nothing wrong with his theory, as far as he could
see. He went over the pump very carefully, making improvements
which would give him a high vacuum, and studied the valve to
make that a better guard of the vacuum in the box. He worked
on the project for weeks but despite his best efforts he could
get no better results than the slow movement of the cylinder.
Finally the truth came to him in a flash--he was losing the
vacuum in the box because the air was leaking in around the cylinder
on that side where the flat board was tangent to the surface
of the cylinder. As the air flowed into the box it pulled the
cylinder around with it very slowly. When the air stopped flowing
into the box the cylinder stopped turning. He knew now his theory
was wrong. He had supposed that even with the vacuum being maintained,
and no air leaking in, the air pressure would be exerted at a
tangent to the surface of the cylinder and the pressure would
produce motion in the same way as pushing on the rim of a wheel
will cause it to turn. He discovered later, however, that the
air pressure is exerted at right angles to the surface of the
cylinder at all points, like the direction of the spokes of a
wheel, and therefore it could not be used to produce rotation
in the way he planned.
This experiment, nevertheless, was not a total loss, even
though it greatly disheartened him. The knowledge that the air
leaking into a vacuum had actually produced even a small amount
of rotation in a cylinder remained with him and led directly,
many years later, to his invention of the "Tesla turbine,"
the steam engine that broke all records for horsepower developed
per pound of weight--what he called "a power house in a
hat."
Nature seemed to be constantly engaged in staging spectacular
demonstrations for young Tesla, revealing to him samples of the
secret of her mighty forces.
Tesla was roaming in the mountains with some chums one winter
day after a storm in which the snow fell moist and sticky. A
small snowball rolled on the ground quickly gathered more snow
to itself and soon became a big one that was not too easy to
move. Tiring of making snowmen and snow houses on level stretches
of ground, the boys took to throwing snowballs down the sloping
ground of the mountain. Most of them were duds--that is, they
got stalled in the soft snow before they accumulated additional
volume. A few rolled a distance, grew larger and then bogged
down and stopped. One, however, found just the right conditions;
it rolled until it was a large ball and then spread out, rolling
up the snow at the sides as if it were rolling up a giant carpet,
and then suddenly it turned into an avalanche. Soon an irresistible
mass of snow was moving down the steep slope. It stripped the
mountainside clean of snow, trees, soil and everything else it
could carry before it and with it. The great mass landed in the
valley below with a thud that shook the mountain. The boys were
frightened because there was snow above them on the mountain
that might have been shaken into a downward slide, carrying them
along buried in it.
This event made a profound impression on Tesla and it dominated
a great deal of his thinking in later life. He had witnessed
a snowball weighing a few ounces starting an irresistible, devastating
movement of thousands of tons of inert matter. It convinced him
that there are tremendous forces locked up in Nature that can
be released in gigantic amounts, for useful as well as destructive
purposes, by the employment of small trigger forces. He was always
on the lookout for such triggers in his later experiments.
Tesla even as a boy was an original thinker and he never hesitated
to think thoughts on a grand scale, always carrying everything
to its largest ultimate dimension as a means of exploring the
cosmos. This is demonstrated by another event that took place
the following summer. He was wandering alone in the mountains
when storm clouds started to fill the sky. There was a flash
of lightning and almost immediately a deluge of rain descended
on him.
There was implanted in his thirteen-year-old mind on that
occasion a thought which he carried with him practically all
his life. He saw the lightning flash and then saw the rain come
down in torrents, so he reasoned that the lightning flash produced
the downpour. The idea become firmly fixed in his mind that electricity
controlled the rain, and that if one could produce lightning
at will, the weather would be brought under control. Then there
would be no dry periods in which crops would be ruined; deserts
could be turned into vineyards, the food supply of the world
would be greatly increased, and there would be no lack of food
anywhere on the globe. why could he not produce lightning?
The observation and the conclusions drawn from it by young
Tesla were worthy of a more mature mind, and it would require
a genius among the adults to have evolved the project of controlling
the world's weather through such means. There was, however, a
flaw in his observation. He saw the lightning come first and
the rain afterward. Further investigation would have revealed
to him that the order of events was reversed higher in the air.
It was the rain that came first and the lightning afterward up
in the cloud. The lightning, however, arrived first because it
made the trip from the cloud in less than 1/100,000 of a second,
while the raindrops required several seconds to fall to the ground.
At this time there was planted in Tesla's mind the seed of
a project which matured more than thirty years later when, in
the mountains of Colorado, he actually produced bolts of lightning,
and planned later to use them to bring rain. He never succeeded
in convincing the U.S. Patent Ofice of the practicability of
the rain-making plan.
Tesla, as a boy, knew no limits to the universe of his thinking;
and as a result he built an intellectual realm suficiently large
to provide ample space in which his more mature mind could operate
without encountering retarding barriers.
Tesla finished his course at the Real Gymnasium in Gospic
in 1870,
at the age of fourteen. He had distinguished himself as a
scholar. In one grade, however, his mathematics professor gave
him less than a passing mark for his year's work. Tesla felt
an injustice had been done him, so he went to the director of
the school and demanded that he be given the strictest kind of
examination in the subject. This was done in the presence of
the director and the professor, and Tesla passed it with an almost
perfect mark.
His fine work at school and the recognition by the towns-people
that he possessed a broader scope of knowledge than any other
youth in town led the trustees of the public library to ask him
to classify the books in their possession and make a catalogue.
He had already read most of the books in his father's extensive
library, so he was pleased to have close access to a still larger
collection and undertook the task with considerable enthusiasm.
He had scarcely begun work on this project when it was interrupted
by a long intermittent illness. When he felt too depressed to
go to the library he had quantities of the books brought to his
home, and these he read while confined to his bed. His illness
reached a critical stage and physicians gave up hope of saving
his life.
Tesla's father knew that he was a delicate child and, having
lost his other son, tried to throw every possible safeguard around
this one. He was greatly pleased over his son's brilliant accomplishments
in almost every activity in which he engaged, but he recognized
as a danger to Nikola's health the great intensity with which
he tackled projects. Nikola's trend toward engineering was to
him a dangerous development, as he thought work in that field
would make too heavy demands upon him, not only because of the
nature of the work but in the extended years of study in which
he would have to engage. If, however, the boy entered the ministry,
it would not be necessary for him to extend his studies beyond
the Real Gymnasium which he had just completed. For this reason
his father favored a career for him in the Church.
Illness threw everything into a somber aspect. When the critical
stage of his illness was reached and his strength was at its
lowest ebb, Nikola manifested no inclination to help himself
get better by developing an enthusiasm for anything. It was in
this stage of his illness that he glanced listlessly at one of
the library books. It was a volume by Mark Twain. The book held
his interest and then aroused his enthusiasm for life, enabling
him to pass a crisis, and his health gradually returned to normal.
Tesla credited the Mark Twain book with saving his life, and
when, years later, he met Twain, they became very close friends.
At the age of fifteen Tesla, in 1870, continued his studies
at the Higher Real Gymnasium, corresponding to our college, at
Karlovac (Carlstadt) in Croatia. His attendance at this school
was made possible by an invitation from a cousin of his father's,
married to a Col. Brankovic, whose home was in Karlovac, to come
and live with her and her husband, a retired Army oficer, while
attending school. His life there was none too happy. Scarcely
had he arrived when he contracted malaria from the mosquitoes
in the Karlovac lowlands, and he was never free from the malady
for years afterward.
Tesla relates that he was hungry all during the three years
he spent at Karlovac. There was plenty of deliciously prepared
food in the home, but his aunt held the theory that because his
health seemed none too rugged he should not eat heavy meals.
Her husband, a gruff and rugged individual, when carving a second
helping for himself, would sometimes try to slip a healthy slice
of meat onto Tesla's plate; but the Colonel was always overruled
by his wife, who would take back the slice and carve one to the
thinness of a sheet of paper, warning her husband, "Niko
is delicate and we must be very careful not to overload his stomach."
His studies at Karlovac interested him, however, and he completed
the four-year course in three years, tackling the school work
with a dangerous enthusiasm, partly as an escape mechanism to
divert his attention from the none too pleasing conditions where
he was living. The lasting favorable impression which Tesla carried
away from Karlovac concerned his professor of physics, a clever
and original experimenter, who amazed him with the feats he performed
with laboratory apparatus. He could not get enough of this course.
He wanted to devote his whole time henceforth to electrical experimenting.
He knew he would not be satisfied in any other field. His mind
was made up; he had selected his career.
His father wrote to him shortly before his graduation advising
him not to return home when school was closed but to go on a
long hunting trip. Tesla, however, was anxious to get home--to
surprise his parents with the good news that he had completed
his work at the Higher Real Gymnasium a year ahead of schedule,
and to announce his decision to make the study of electricity
his life work. Greatly worried, his parents, who at that moment
were making strenuous efforts to protect his health, were doubly
alarmed. first, there was his violation of the instruction sent
him not to return to Gospic. The reason for this advice they
had not disclosed--an epidemic of cholera was raging. And second,
there was his decision to enter on a career which they feared
would make dangerous demands on his delicate health. On returning
home, he found his plan definitely opposed. This made him very
unhappy. In addition, he would shortly have to face a situation
which was even more repugnant than entering upon a career in
the Church, and that was the compulsory three-years' service
in the Army. Those two powerful factors were operating against
him and seeking to thwart him in his burning desire to start
immediately unraveling the mystery and harnessing the great power
of electricity.
Nothing, he thought, could exceed the dificulty of the predicament
in which he found himself. In this, however, he was mistaken,
for he was soon to face a much more serious problem. On the very
day after his arrival home, while these issues were still red
hot, he became ill with cholera. He had come home malnourished
because of the inadequate amount of food to which he had been
limited and the strain of his intense application to his studies.
Besides, he was still suffering from malaria. Then came the cholera.
Now all other problems became secondary to the immediate one
of maintaining life itself against the deadly scourge. His physical
condition made the doctors despair of saving him. Nevertheless,
he survived the crisis, but it left him in a thoroughly weakened
and run-down condition. For nine months he lay in bed almost
a physical wreck. He had frequent sinking spells and from each
successive one it seemed harder to rally him.
Life held no incentive for him. If he survived he would be
forced to enter the Army and, if nothing happened to prevent
him from finishing that term of something worse than slavery,
he would be forced to study for the ministry. He did not care
whether he survived or not. Left to his own decision, he would
not have rallied from earlier sinking spells; but the decision
was not left to him. Some force stronger than his own consciousness
carried him through, but it had to succeed in spite of him and
not because of any assistance he was giving. The sinking spells
came on with startling regularity, each one with increasing depth.
It seemed a miracle that he had come out of the last one, and
now with less reserve strength he was sinking into another and
edging rapidly into unconsciousness. His father entered his room
and tried desperately to rouse him and stir him to a more cheerful
and hopeful attitude in which he could help himself and do more
than the doctors could do for him, but without results.
"I could--get well--if you--would let me--study electrical--engineering,"
said the prostrate young man in a hardly audible whisper. He
had scarcely enough energy left for even this effort; and having
made the speech, he seemed to be dropping over the edge of nothingness.
His father, bending intently over him and fearing the end had
come, seized him.
"Nikola," he commanded, "you cannot go. you
must stay. you will be an engineer. Do you hear me? you will
go to the best engineering school in the world and you will be
a great engineer. Nikola, you must come back, you must come back
and become a great engineer."
The eyes of the prostrate figure opened slowly. Now there
was a light shining in the eyes where before they presented a
death-like glaze. The face moved a little, very little, but the
slight change this movement made seemed to be in the direction
of a smile. It was a smile, a weak one, and he was able to keep
his eyes open although it was very apparently a struggle for
him to do so.
"Thank God" said his father. "you heard me,
Nikola. you will go to an engineering school and become a great
engineer. Do you understand me?"
There was not enough energy for voice but the smile became
a little more definite.
Another crisis in which he had escaped death by the narrowest
margin had been passed. His rise out of this situation seemed
almost miraculous. It seemed to him, Tesla later related, that
from that instant he felt as if he were drawing vital energy
from his loved ones who surrounded him; and this he used to rally
himself out of the shadow.
He was again able to whisper. "I will get well,"
he said weakly. He breathed deeply, as deep as his frail tired
frame would permit, of the oxygen which he had found so stimulating
in the past. It was the first time he had done so in the nine
months since he became ill. With each breath he felt reinvigorated.
He seemed to get stronger by the minute.
In a very short time he was taking nourishment and within
a week he was able to sit up. In a few days more he was on his
feet. Life now would be glorious. He would be an electrical engineer.
Everything he dreamed of would come true. As the days passed
he recovered his strength at a remarkably rapid rate and his
hearty appetite returned. It was now early summer. He would prepare
himself to enter the fall term at an engineering school.
But there was something he had forgotten, everyone in the
family had forgotten, in the stress of his months of illness.
It was now brought sharply to his and their attention. An Army
summons--he must face three years' military servitude! was his
remarkable recovery to be ruined by this catastrophe, which seemed
all the worse now that his chosen career seemed otherwise nearer?
Failure to respond to a military summons meant jail--and after
that the service in addition. How would he solve this problem?
There is no record of what took place. This spot in his career
Tesla glossed over with the statement that his father considered
it advisable for him to go off on a year's hunting expedition
to recover his health. At any rate, Nikola disappeared. He left
with a hunting outfit and some books and paper. where he spent
the year, no one knows--probably at some hideaway in the mountains.
In the meantime, he was a fugitive from Army service.
For any ordinary individual this situation would be a most
serious one. For Tesla it had all the gravity associated with
ordinary cases, plus the complication that his family on his
father's side was a traditional military family whose members
had won high rank and honors in Army activities, and many of
whom were now in the service of Austria-Hungary. For a member
of that family to become equivalent to a "draft dodger"
and a "conscientious objector," both, was a serious
blow to its prestige, and could provoke a scandal if word of
the situation got into circulation. Tesla's father used this
circumstance and the fact of NikoIa's delicate health as talking
points to induce his relatives in Army positions to use their
influence to enable his son to escape conscription and avoid
punishment for failing to respond to the Army call. In this he
was successful, apparently, but required considerable time in
which to make the arrangements.
Hiding in the mountains and with a year's time to kill, on
this enforced vacation Tesla was able to indulge in working out
totally fantastic plans for some gigantic projects. One of the
plans was for the construction and operation of an under-ocean
tube, connecting Europe and the United States, by which mail
could be transported in spherical containers moved through the
tube by water pressure. He discovered early in his calculations
that the friction of the water on the walls of the tube would
require such a tremendous amount of power to overcome it that
it made the project totally impracticable. Since, however, he
was working on the project entirely for his own amusement, he
eliminated friction from the calculations and was then able to
design a very interesting system of high-speed intercontinental
mail delivery. The factor which made this interesting project
impracticable--the drag of the water on the sides of the tube--Tesla
was later to utilize when he invented his novel steam turbine.
The other project with which he amused himself was drawn upon
an even larger scale and required a still higher order of imagination.
He conceived the project of building a ring around the earth
at the Equator, somewhat resembling the rings around the planet
Saturn. The earth ring, however, was to be a solid structure
whereas Saturn's rings are made up of dust particles.
Tesla loved to work with mathematics, and this project gave
him an excellent opportunity to use all of the mathematical techniques
available to him. The ring which Tesla planned was to be a rigid
structure constructed on a gigantic system of scaffolding extending
completely around the earth. Once the ring was complete, the
scaffolding was to be removed and the ring would stay suspended
in space and rotating at the same speed as the earth.
Some use might be found for the project, Tesla said, if someone
could find a means of providing reactionary forces that could
make the ring stand still with respect to the earth while the
latter whirled underneath it at a speed of 1,000 miles per hour.
This would provide a high-speed "moving" platform system
of transportation which would make it possible for a person to
travel around the earth in a single day.
In this project, he admitted, he encountered the same problem
as did Archimedes, who said "Give me a fulcrum and a lever
long enough and I will move the earth." "The fulcrum
in space on which to rest the lever was no more attainable than
was the reactionary force needed to halt the spinning of the
hypothetical ring around the earth," said Tesla. There were
a number of other factors which he found necessary to ignore
in this project, but ignore them he did so that they would not
interfere with his mathematical practice and his cosmical engineering
plans.
With his health regained, and the danger of punishment by
the Army removed, Tesla returned to his home in Gospic to remain
a short time before going to Graumltz, where he was to study
electrical engineering as his father had promised he could do.
This marked the turning point in his life. Finished with boyhood
dreams and play, he was now ready to settle down to his serious
life work. He had played at being a god, not hesitating to plan
refashioning the earth as a planet. His life work was to produce
accomplishments hardly less fantastic than his boyhood dreams.
TESLA entered manhood with a definite knowledge that nameless
forces were shaping for him an unrevealed destiny. It was a situation
he had to feel rather than be able to identify and describe in
words. His goal he could not see and the course leading to it
he could not discern. He knew very definitely the field in which
he intended to spend his life, and using such physical laws as
he knew he decided to plan a life which, as an engineering project,
would be operated under principles that would yield the highest
index of efficiency. He did not, at this time, have a complete
plan of life drawn up, but there were certain elements which
he knew intuitively he would not include in his operations, so
he avoided all activities and interests that would bring them
in as complications. It was to be a single-purpose life, devoted
entirely to science with no provisions whatever for play or romance.
It was with this philosophy of life that Tesla in 1875, at
the age of 19, went to Graumltz, in Austria, to study electrical
engineering at the Polytechnic Institute. He intended henceforth
to devote all his energies to mastering that strange, almost
occult force, electricity, and to harness it for human welfare.
His first effort to put this philosophy to a practical test
almost resulted in disaster despite the fact that it worked successfully.
Tesla completely eliminated recreation and plunged into his studies
with such enthusiastic devotion that he allowed himself only
four hours' rest, not all of which he spent in slumber. He would
go to bed at eleven o'clock and read himself to sleep. He was
up again in the small hours of the morning, tackling his studies.
Under such a schedule he was able to pass, at the end of the
first term, his examinations in nine subjects--nearly twice as
many as were required. His diligence greatly impressed the members
of the faculty. The dean of the technical faculty wrote to Tesla's
father, "your son is a star of first rank." The strain,
however, was affecting his health. He desired to make a spectacular
showing to demonstrate to his father in a practical way his appreciation
of the permission he gave to study engineering. When he returned
to his home at the end of the school term with the highest marks
that could be awarded in all the subjects passed, he expected
to be joyfully received by his father and praised for his good
work. Instead, his parent showed only the slightest enthusiasm
for his accomplishment but a great deal of interest in his health,
and criticized Nikola for endangering it after his earlier narrow
escape from death. Unknown to Tesla until several years afterward,
the professor at the Polytechnic Institute had written to his
father early in the term, asking him to take his son out of the
school, as he was in danger of killing himself through overwork.
On his return to the Institute for the second year he decided
to limit his studies to physics, mechanics and mathematics. This
was fortunate because it gave him more time in which to handle
a situation that arose later in his studies, and was to lead
to his first and perhaps greatest invention.
Early in his second year at the Institute there was received
from Paris a piece of electrical equipment, a Gramme machine,
that could be used as either a dynamo or motor. If turned by
mechanical power it would generate electricity, and if supplied
with electricity it would operate as a motor and produce mechanical
power. It was a direct-current machine.
When Prof. Poeschl demonstrated the machine, Tesla was greatly
impressed by its performance except in one respect--a great deal
of sparking took place at the commutator. Tesla stated his objections
to this defect.
"It is inherent in the nature of the machine," replied
Prof. Poeschl. "It may be reduced to a great extent, but
as long as we use commutators it will always be present to some
degree. As long as electricity flows in one direction, and as
long as a magnet has two poles each of which acts oppositely
on the current, we will have to use a commutator to change, at
the right moment, the direction of the current in the rotating
armature."
"That is obvious," Tesla countered. "The machine
is limited by the current used. I am suggesting that we get rid
of the commutator entirely by using alternating current."
Long before the machine was received, Tesla had studied the
theory of the dynamo and motor, and he was convinced that the
whole system could be simplified in some way. The solution of
the problem, however, evaded his grasp, nor was he at all sure
the problem could be solved--until Prof. Poeschl gave his demonstration.
The assurance then came to him like a commanding flash.
The first sources of current were batteries which produced
a small steady flow. When man sought to produce electricity from
mechanical power, he sought to make the same kind the batteries
produced: a steady flow in one direction. The kind of current
a dynamo would produce when coils of wire were whirled in a magnetic
field was not this kind of current--it flowed first in one direction
and then in the other. The commutator was invented as a clever
device for circumventing this seeming handicap of artificial
electricity and making the current come out in a one- directional
flow.
The flash that came to Tesla was to let the current come out
of the dynamo with its alternating directions of flow, thus eliminating
the commutator, and feed this kind of current to the motors,
thus eliminating the need in them for commutators. Many another
scientist had played with that idea long before it occurred to
Tesla, but in his case it came to him as such a vivid, illuminating
flash of understanding that he knew his visualization contained
the correct and practical answer. He saw both the motors and
dynamos operating without commutators, and doing so very efficiently.
He did not, however, see the extremely important and essential
details of how this desirable result could be accomplished, but
he felt an overpowering assurance that he could solve the problem.
It was for this reason that he stated his objections to the Gramme
machine with a great deal of confidence to his professor. what
he did not expect was to draw a storm of criticism.
Prof. Poeschl, however, deviated from his set program of lectures
and devoted the next one to Tesla's objections. With methodical
thoroughness he picked Tesla's proposal apart and, disposing
of one point after another, demonstrated its impractical nature
so convincingly that he silenced even Tesla. He ended his lecture
with the statement: "Mr. Tesla will accomplish great things,
but he certainly never will do this. It would be equivalent to
converting a steady pulling force like gravity into rotary effort.
It is a perpetual motion scheme, an impossible idea."
Tesla, although silenced temporarily, was not convinced. The
professor had paid him a nice compliment in devoting a whole
lecture to his observation, but, as is so often the case, the
compliment was loaded with what was expected by the professor
to be a crushing defeat for the one whom he complimented. Tesla
was nevertheless greatly impressed by his authority; and for
a while he weakened in his belief that he had correctly understood
his vision. It was as clear-cut and definite as the visualizations
that came to him of the solutions of mathematical problems which
he was always able to prove correct. But perhaps, after all,
he was in this case a victim of a self-induced hallucination.
All other things Prof. Poeschl taught were solidly founded on
demonstrable fact, so perhaps his teacher was right in his objections
to the alternating-current idea.
Deep down in his innermost being, however, Tesla held firmly
to the conviction that his idea was a correct one. Criticism
only temporarily submerged it, and soon it came bobbing back
to the surface of his thinking. He gradually convinced himself
that, contrary to his usual procedure, Prof. Poeschl had in this
case demonstrated merely that he did not know how to accomplish
a given result, a defficiency which he shared with everyone else
in the world, and therefore could not speak with authority on
this subject. And, in addition, Tesla reasoned, the closing remark
with which Prof. Poeschl believed he had clinched his argument--"It
would be equivalent to converting a steady pulling force like
gravity into a rotary effort--was contradicted by Nature, for
was not the steady pulling force of gravity making the moon revolve
around the earth and the earth revolve around the sun?
"I could not demonstrate my belief at that time,"
said Tesla, "but it came to me through what I might call
instinct, for lack of a better name. But instinct is something
which transcends knowledge. we undoubtedly have in our brains
some finer fibers which enable us to perceive truths which we
could not attain through logical deductions, and which it would
be futile to attempt to achieve through any wilful effort of
thinking."
His enthusiasm and confidence in himself restored, Tesla tackled
the problem with renewed vigor. His power of visualization--the
ability to see as solid objects before him the things that he
conceived in his mind, and which he had considered such a great
annoyance in childhood--now proved to be of great aid to him
in trying to unravel this problem. He made an elastic rebound
from the intellectual trouncing administered by his Professor
and was tackling the problem in methodical fashion.
In his mind he constructed one machine after another, and
as he visioned them before him he could trace out with his finger
the various circuits through armature and field coils, and follow
the course of the rapidly changing currents. But in no case did
he produce the desired rotation. Practically all the remainder
of the term he spent on this problem. He had passed so many examinations
during the first term that he had plenty of time to spend on
this problem during the second.
It seemed, however, that he was doomed to fail in this project,
for at the term's end he was no nearer the solution than he was
when he started. His pride had been injured and he was fighting
on the defensive side. He did not know that those seeming failures
in his mental and laboratory experiments were to serve later
as the raw material out of which yet another vision was to be
created.
A radical change had taken place in Tesla's mode of life while
at Graumltz. The first year he had acted like an intellectual
glutton, overloading his mind and nearly wrecking his health
in the process. In the second year he allowed more time for digesting
the mental food of which he was partaking, and permitted himself
more recreation. About this time Tesla took to card-playing as
a means of relaxation. His keen mental processes and highly developed
powers of deduction enabled him to win more frequently than he
lost. He never retained the money he won but returned it to the
losers at the end of the game. When he lost, however, this procedure
was not reciprocated by the other players. He also developed
a passion for billiards and chess, in both of which he became
remarkably proficient.
The fondness for card-playing which Tesla developed at Graumltz
got him into an embarrassing situation. Toward the end of the
term his father sent him money to pay for his trip to Prague
and for the expenses incident to enrolling as a student at the
university. Instead of going directly to Prague, Tesla returned
to Gospic for a visit to the family. Sitting in at a card game
with some youths of the city, Tesla found his usual luck had
deserted him, and he lost the money set aside for his university
expenses. He confessed to his mother what he had done. She did
not criticize him. Perhaps the fates were using this method for
protecting him from overwork that might ruin his health, she
reasoned, since he needed rest and relaxation. Losses of money
were much easier to handle than loss of health. Borrowing some
money from a friend, she gave it to Tesla with the words, "Here
you are. Satisfy yourself." Returning to the game, he experienced
a change in luck and came out of it not only with the money his
mother had given him but practically all of the university expense
money he had previously lost. These winnings he did not return
to the losers as was his previous custom. He returned home, gave
his mother the money she had advanced him, and announced that
he would never again indulge in card-playing.
Instead of going to the University of Prague in the fall of
1878 as he had planned, Tesla accepted a lucrative position that
was offered him in a technical establishment at Maribor, near
Graumltz. He was paid sixty florins a month and a separate bonus
for the completed work, a very generous compensation compared
with the prevailing wages. During this year Tesla lived very
modestly and saved his earnings.
The money he had saved at Maribor enabled him to pay his way
through a year at the University of Prague, where he extended
his studies in mathematics and physics. He continued experimenting
with the one big challenging alternating-current idea that was
occupying his mind. He had explored, unsuccessfully, a large
number of methods and, though his failures gave support to Prof.
Poeschl's contention that he would never succeed, he was unwilling
to give up his theory. He still had faith that he would find
the solution of his problem. He knew electrical science was young
and growing, and felt deep within his consciousness that he would
make the important discovery that would greatly expand the infant
science to the powerful giant of the future.
It would have been a pleasure to Tesla to have continued his
studies, but it now was necessary for him to make his own living.
His father's death, following Tesla's graduation from the University
at Prague, made it necessary for him to be self-supporting. Now
he needed a job. Europe was extending an enthusiastic reception
to Alexander Graham Bell's new American invention, the telephone,
and Tesla heard that a central station was to be installed in
Budapest. The head of the enterprise was a friend of the family.
The situation seemed a promising one.
Without waiting to ascertain the situation in Budapest, Tesla,
full of youthful hope and the self-assurance which is typical
of the untried graduate, traveled to that city, expecting to
walk into an engineering position in the new telephone project.
He quickly discovered, on his arrival, that there was no position
open; nor could one be created for him, as the project was still
in the discussion stage.
It was, however, urgently necessary for financial reasons,
that he secure immediately a job of some kind. The best he could
obtain was a much more modest one than he had anticipated. The
salary was so microscopically small he would never name the amount,
but it was suficient to enable him to avoid starvation. He was
employed as draftsman by the Hungarian Government in its Central
Telegraph Ofice, which included the newly developing telephone
in its jurisdiction.
It was not long before Tesla's outstanding ability attracted
the attention of the Inspector in Chief. Soon he was transferred
to a more responsible position in which he was engaged in designing
and in making calculations and estimates in connection with new
telephone installations. When the new telephone exchange was
finally started in Budapest in 1881, he was placed in charge
of it.
Tesla was very happy in his new position. At the age of twenty-five
he was in full charge of an engineering enterprise. His inventive
faculty was fully occupied and he made many improvements in telephone
central-station apparatus. Here he made his first invention,
then called a telephone repeater, or amplifier, but which today
would be more descriptively called a loud speaker--an ancestor
of the sound producer now so common in the home radio set. This
invention was never patented and was never publicly described,
but, Tesla later declared, in its originality, design, performance
and ingenuity it would make a creditable showing alongside his
better-known creations that followed. His chief interest, however,
was still the alternating-current motor problem whose solution
continued to elude him.
Always an indefatigable worker, always using up his available
energy with the greatest number of activities he could crowd
into a day, always rebelling because the days had too few hours
in them and the hours too few minutes, and the seconds that composed
them were of too short duration, and always holding himself down
to a five-hour period of rest with only two hours of that devoted
to sleep, he continually used up his vital reserves and eventually
had to balance accounts with Nature. He was forced finally to
discontinue work.
The peculiar malady that now affected him was never diagnosed
by the doctors who attended him. It was, however, an experience
that nearly cost him his life. To doctors he appeared to be at
death's door. The strange manifestations he exhibited attracted
the attention of a renowned physician, who declared medical science
could do nothing to aid him. One of the symptoms of the illness
was an acute sensitivity of all of the sense organs. His senses
had always been extremely keen, but this sensitivity was now
so tremendously exaggerated that the effects were a form of torture.
The ticking of a watch three rooms away sounded like the beat
of hammers on an anvil. The vibration of ordinary city trafic,
when transmitted through a chair or bench, pounded through his
body. It was necessary to place the legs of his bed on rubber
pads to eliminate the vibrations. Ordinary speech sounded like
thunderous pandemonium. The slightest touch had the mental effect
of a tremendous blow. A beam of sunlight shining on him produced
the effect of an internal explosion. In the dark he could sense
an object at a distance of a dozen feet by a peculiar creepy
sensation in his forehead. His whole body was constantly wracked
by twitches and tremors. His pulse, he said, would vary from
a few feeble throbs per minute to more than one hundred and fifty.
Throughout this mysterious illness he was fighting with powerful
desire to recover his normal condition. He had before him a task
he must accomplish--he must attain the solution of the alternating-current
motor problem. He felt intuitively during his months of torment
that the solution was coming ever nearer, and that he must live
in order to be there when it crystallized out of his unconscious
mind. During this period he was unable to concentrate on this
or any other subject.
Once the crisis was past and the symptoms diminished, improvement
came rapidly and with it the old urge to tackle problems. He
could not give up his big problem. It had become a part of him.
working on it was no longer a matter of choice. He knew that
if he stopped he would die, and he knew equally well that if
he failed he would perish. He was enmeshed in an invisible web
of intangible structure that was tightening around him. The feeling
that it was bringing the solution nearer to him--just beyond
his finger tips--was cause for both regret and rejoicing. That
problem when solved would leave a tremendous vacancy in his life,
he feared.
yet in spite of his feeling of optimism it was still a tremendous
problem without a solution.
When the acute sensitivity reduced to normal, permitting him
to resume work, he took a walk in the city park of Budapest with
a former classmate, named Szigeti, one late afternoon in February,
1882. while a glorious sunset overspread the sky with a flamboyant
splash of throbbing colors, Tesla engaged in one of his favorite
hobbies--reciting poetry. As a youth he had memorized many volumes,
and he was now pleased to note that the terrific punishment his
brain had experienced had not diminished his memory. One of the
works which he could recite from beginning to end was Goethe's
Faust.
The prismatic panorama which the sinking sun was painting
in the sky reminded him of some of Goethe's beautiful lines:
"The glow retreats, done is the day of toil"
"It yonder hastes, new fields of life exploring"
"Ah, that no wing can lift me from the soil"
"Upon its track to follow, follow soaring"
Tesla, tall, lean and gaunt, but with a fire in his eye that
matched the flaming clouds of the heavens, waved his arms in
the air and swayed his body as he voiced the undulating lines.
He faced the color drama of the sky as if addressing the red-glowing
orb as it flung its amorphous masses of hue, tint and chrome
across the domed vault of heaven.
Suddenly the animated figure of Tesla snapped into a rigid
pose as if he had fallen into a trance. Szigeti spoke to him
but got no answer. Again his words were ignored. The friend was
about to seize the towering motionless figure and shake him into
consciousness when instead Tesla spoke.
"Watch me!" said Tesla, blurting out the words like
a child bubbling over with emotion: "Watch me reverse it."
He was still gazing into the sun as if that incandescent ball
had thrown him into a hypnotic trance.
Szigeti recalled the image from Goethe that Tesla had been
reciting: "The glow retreats . . . It yonder hastes, new
fields of life exploring" a poetic description of the setting
sun, and then his next words-- "watch me! watch me reverse
it." Did Tesla mean the sun? Did he mean that he could arrest
the motion of the sun about to sink below the horizon, reverse
its action and start it rising again toward the zenith?
"Let us sit and rest for a while," said Szigeti.
He turned him toward a bench, but Tesla was not to be moved.
"Don't you see it?" expostulated the excited Tesla.
"See how smoothly it is running? Now I throw this switch--and
I reverse it. See! It goes just as smoothly in the opposite direction.
watch! I stop it. I start it. There is no sparking. There is
nothing on it to spark."
"But I see nothing," said Szigeti. "The sun
is not sparking. Are you ill?"
"you do not understand," beamed the still excited
Tesla, turning as if to bestow a benediction on his companion.
"It is my alternating-current motor I am talking about.
I have solved the problem. Can't you see it right here in front
of me, running almost silently? It is the rotating magnetic field
that does it. See how the magnetic field rotates and drags the
armature around with it? Isn't it beautiful? Isn't it sublime?
Isn't it simple? I have solved the problem. Now I can die happy.
But I must live, I must return to work and build the motor so
I can give it to the world. No more will men be slaves to hard
tasks. My motor will set them free, it will do the work of the
world."
Szigeti now understood. Tesla had previously told him about
his attempt to solve the problem of an alternating-current motor,
and he grasped the full meaning of the scientist's words. Tesla
had never told him, however, about his ability to visualize objects
which he conceived in his mind, so it was necessary to explain
the vision he saw, and that the solution had come to him suddenly
while they were admiring the sunset.
Tesla was now a little more composed, but he was floating
on air in a frenzy of almost religious ecstasy. He had been breathing
deeply in his excitement, and the overventilation of his lungs
had produced a state of exhilaration.
Picking up a twig, he used it as a scribe to draw a diagram
on the dusty surface of the dirt walk. As he explained the technical
principles of his discovery, his friend quickly grasped the beauty
of his conception, and far into the night they remained together
discussing its possibilities.
The conception of a rotating magnetic field was a majestically
beautiful one. It introduced to the scientific world a new principle
of sublime grandeur whose simplicity and utility opened a vast
new empire of useful applications. In it Tesla had achieved the
solution which his professor had declared was impossible of attainment.
Alternating-current motors had heretofore presented what seemed
an insoluble problem because the magnetic field produced by alternating
currents changed as rapidly as the current. Instead of producing
a turning force they churned up useless vibration.
Up to this time everyone who tried to make an alternating-current
motor used a single circuit, just as was in direct current. As
a result the projected motor proved to be like a single-cylinder
steam engine, stalled at dead center, at the top or bottom of
the stroke.
what Tesla did was to use two circuits, each one carrying
the same frequency of alternating-current, but in which the current
waves were out of step with each other. This was equivalent to
adding to an engine a second cylinder. The pistons in the two
cylinders were connected to the shaft so that their cranks were
at in angle to each other which caused them to reach the top
or bottom of the stroke at different times. The two could never
be on dead center at the same time. If one were on dead center,
the other would be off and ready to start the engine turning
with a power stroke.
This analogy oversimplifies the situation, of course, for
Tesla's discovery was much more far-reaching and fundamental.
what Tesla had discovered was a means of creating a rotating
magnetic field, a magnetic whirlwind in space which possessed
fantastically new and intriguing properties. It was an utterly
new conception. In direct-current motors a fixed magnetic field
was tricked by mechanical means into producing rotation in an
armature by connecting successively through a commutator each
of a series of coils arranged around the circumference of a cylindrical
armature. Tesla produced a field of force which rotated in space
at high speed and was able to lock tightly into its embrace an
armature which required no electrical connections. The rotating
field possessed the property of transferring wirelessly through
space, by means of its lines of force, energy to the simple closed
circuit coils on the isolated armature which enabled it to build
up its own magnetic field that locked itself into the rotating
magnetic whirlwind produced by the field coils. The need for
a commutator was completely eliminated.
Now that this magnificent solution of his most dificult scientific
problem was achieved, Tesla's troubles were not over; they were
just beginning; but, during the next two months, he was in a
state of ecstatic pleasure playing with his new toy. It was not
necessary for him to construct models of copper and iron: in
his mental workshop he constructed them in wide variety. A constant
stream of new ideas was continuously rushing through his mind.
They came so fast, he said, that he could neither utilize nor
record them all. In this short period he evolved every type of
motor which was later associated with his name.
He worked out the design of dynamos, motors, transformers
and all other devices for a complete alternating-current system.
He multiplied the effectiveness of the two-phase system by making
it operate on three or more alternating currents simultaneously.
This was his famous polyphase power system.
The mental constructs were built with meticulous care as concerned
size, strength, design and material; and they were tested mentally,
he maintained, by having them run for weeks--after which time
he would examine them thoroughly for signs of wear. Here was
a most unusual mind being utilized in a most unusual way. If
he at any time built a "mental machine," his memory
ever afterward retained all of the details, even to the finest
dimensions.
The state of supreme happiness which Tesla was enjoying was
destined soon, however, to end. The telephone central station
by which he was employed, and which was controlled by Puskas,
that friend of the family, was sold. When Puskas returned to
Paris, he recommended Tesla for a job in the Paris establishment
with which he was associated, and Tesla gladly followed up his
opportunity. Paris, he reasoned, would be a wonderful springboard
from which to catapult his great invention on the world.
The budding superman Tesla came to Paris light in baggage
but with his head filled to bursting with his wonderful discovery
of the rotating magnetic field and scores of significant inventions
based on it. If he had been a typical inventor, he would have
gone among people wearing a look indicating that he knew something
important, but maintaining absolute secrecy concerning the nature
of his inventions. He would be fearful that someone would steal
his secret. But Tesla's attitude was just the reverse of this.
He had something to give to the world and he wanted the world
to know about it, the whole fascinating story with all the revealing
technical details. He had not then learned, and never did learn,
the craft of being shrewd and cunning. His life plan was on a
secular basis. He cared less for the advantages of the passing
moment, more for the ultimate goal; and he wanted to give his
newly discovered polyphase system of alternating-current to the
human race that all men could benefit from it. He knew there
was a fortune in his invention. How he could extract this fortune
he did not know. He knew that there was a higher law of compensation
under which he would derive adequate benefits from the gift to
the world of his discovery. The method by which this would work
out did not interest him nearly so much as the necessity for
getting someone to listen to the details of his fascinating invention.
Six feet two inches tall, slender, quiet of demeanor, meticulously
neat in dress, full of self-confidence, he carried himself with
an air that shouted, "I defy you to show me an electrical
problem I can't solve"--an attitude that was consistent
with his twenty-five years, but also matched by his ability.
Through Puskas's letter of recommendation he obtained a position
with the Continental Edison Company, a French company organized
to make dynamos, motors and install lighting systems under the
Edison patents.
He obtained quarters on the Boulevard St. Michel, but in the
evenings visited and dined at the best cafes as long as his salary
lasted. He made contact with many Americans engaged in electrical
enterprises. wherever he could get a patient ear, among those
who had an understanding of electrical matters, he described
his alternating-current system of dynamos and motors.
Did someone steal his invention? Not the slightest danger.
He could not even give it away. No one was even slightly interested.
The closest approach to a nibble was when Dr. Cunningham, an
American, a foreman in the plant where Tesla was employed, suggested
formation of a stock company.
With his great alternating-current-system invention pounding
at his brain and demanding some way in which it could be developed,
it was a hardship for him to be forced to work all day on direct-current
machines. Nowadays, though, his health was robust. He would arise
shortly after five o'clock in the morning, walk to the Seine,
swim for half an hour, and then walk to Ivry, near the gates
of Paris, where he was employed, a trip that required an hour
of lively stepping. It was then half-past seven. The next hour
he spent in eating a very substantial breakfast which never seemed
suficient to keep his appetite from developing into a disturbing
factor long before noon.
The work to which he was assigned at the Continental Edison
Company factory was of a variegated character, largely that of
a junior engineer. In a short time he was given a traveling assignment
as a "trouble shooter" which required him to visit
electrical installations in various parts of France and Germany.
Tesla did not relish "trouble shooting" but he did
a conscientious job and studied intensely the dificulties he
encountered at each powerhouse. He was soon able to present a
definite plan for improving the dynamos manufactured by his company.
He presented his suggestions and received permission to apply
them to some machines. When tested they were a complete success.
He was then asked to design automatic regulators, for which there
was a great need. These too gave an excellent performance.
The company had been placed in an embarrassing position and
was threatened with heavy loss through an accident at the railroad
station in Strassburg in Alsace, then in Germany, where a powerhouse
and electric lights had been installed. At the opening ceremony,
at which Emperor fiilliam I was present, a short circuit in the
wiring caused an explosion that blew out one of the walls. The
German government refused to accept the installation. Tesla was
sent, early in 1883, to put the plant in working order and straighten
out the situation. The technical problem presented no dificulties
but he found it necessary to use a great deal of tact and good
judgment in handling the mass of red tape extruded by the German
government as precaution against further mishaps.
Once he got the job well under way he gave some time to constructing
an actual two-phase alternating-current motor embodying his rotary-magnetic-field
discovery. He had constructed so many in his mind since that
never-to-be-forgotten day in Budapest when he made his great
invention. He had brought materials with him from Paris for this
purpose and found a machine shop near the Strassburg station
where he could do some of the work. He did not have as much time
available as he had expected, and, while he was a clever amateur
machinist, nevertheless the work took time. He was very fussy,
making every piece of metal exact in dimensions to better than
the thousandth of an inch and then carefully polishing it.
Eventually there was a miscellaneous collection of parts in
that Strassburg machine shop. They had been constructed without
the aid of working drawings. Tesla could project before his eyes
a picture, complete in every detail, of every part of the machine.
These pictures were more vivid than any blueprint and he remembered
exact dimensions which he had calculated mentally for each item.
He did not have to test parts through partial assembly. He knew
they would fit.
From these parts Tesla quickly assembled a dynamo, to generate
the two-phase alternating current which he needed to operate
his alternating-current motor, and finally his new induction
motor. There was no difference between the motor he built and
the one which he visualized. So real was the visualized one that
it had all the appearance of solidity. The one he built in the
machine shop presented no elements of novelty to him. It was
exactly as he had visualized it a year before. He had mentally
experimented with its exact counterpart and with many variations
of it during the months that had passed since the great vision
came to him while rhapsodizing the sunset sky in Budapest.
The assembly completed, he started up his power generator.
The time for the great final test of the validity of his theory
had arrived. He would close a switch and if the motor turned
his theory would be proven correct. If nothing happened, if the
armature of his motor just stood still, but vibrated, his theory
was not correct and he had been feeding his mind on hallucinations,
based on fantasy not on fact.
He closed the switch. Instantly the armature turned, built
up to full speed in a flash and then continued to operate in
almost complete silence. He closed the reversing switch and the
armature instantly stopped and as quickly started turning in
the opposite direction. This was complete vindication of his
theory.
In this experiment he had tested only his two-phase system;
but he needed no laboratory demonstration to convince him that
his three-phase systems for generating electricity and for using
this current for transmission and power production would work
even better, and that his single-phase system would work almost
as well. With this working model he would now be able to convey
to the minds of others the visions he had been treasuring for
so long.
This test meant much more to Tesla than just the successful
completion of an invention; it meant a triumph for his method
of discovering new truths through the unique mental processes
he used of visualizing constructs long before they were produced
from materials. From these results he drew an unbounded sense
of self-confidence; he could think and work his way to any goal
he set.
There was good reason for Tesla's self-assurance. He had just
passed his twenty-seventh birthday. It seemed to him only yesterday
that Prof. Poeschl had seemingly so completely vanquished him
for saying that he could operate a motor by alternating current.
Now he had demonstrably accomplished what the learned professor
said could never be done.
Tesla now had available a completely novel type of electrical
system utilizing alternating current, which was much more flexible
and vastly more efficient than the direct-current system. But
now that he had it, what could he do with it? The executives
of the Continental Edison Company by whom he was employed had
continually refused to listen to his alternating-current theories.
He felt it would be useless to try to interest them in even the
working model. He had made many friends during his stay in Strassburg,
among them the Mayor of the city, M. Bauzin, who shared his enthusiasm
about the commercial possibilities of the new system and hoped
it would result in the establishment of a new industry that would
bring fame and prosperity to his city.
The Mayor brought together a number of wealthy Strassburgers.
To them the new motor was shown in operation, and the new system
and its possibilities described, by both Tesla and the Mayor.
The demonstration was a success from the technical viewpoint
but otherwise a total loss. Not one member of the group showed
the slightest interest. Tesla was dejected. It was beyond his
comprehension that the greatest invention in electrical science,
with unlimited commercial possibilities, should be rejected so
completely.
M. Bauzin assured him that he would undoubtedly receive a
more satisfactory reception for his invention in Paris. Delays
of oficialdom in finally accepting the completed installation
at the Strassburg station, however, postponed his return to Paris
until the spring of 1884. Meanwhile, Tesla looked forward with
pleasurable expectancy to a triumphant return to Paris. He had
been promised a substantial compensation if he was successful
in handling the Strassburg assignment; also, that he would be
similarly compensated for the improvements in design of motors
and dynamos, and for the automatic regulators for dynamos. It
was possible that this would supply him with enough cash to build
a full-size demonstration set for his polyphase alternating-current
system, so that the tremendous advantages of his system over
direct current could be shown in operation. Then he would have
no trouble raising the needed capital.
When he got back to the company's ofices in Paris and asked
for a settlement of his Strassburg and automatic-regulator accounts,
he was given what in modern terminology is called the "runaround."
To use fictitious names, as Tesla told the story, the executive,
Mr. Smith, who gave him the assignments, now told him he had
no jurisdiction over financial arrangements; that was all in
the hands of the executive, Mr. Brown. Mr. Brown explained that
he administered financial matters but had no authority to initiate
projects or to make payments other than those directed by the
chief executive, Mr. Jones. Mr. Jones explained that such matters
were in the hands of his department executives, and that he never
interfered with their decisions, so Tesla must see the executive
in charge of technical matters, Mr. Smith. Tesla traveled this
vicious circle several times with the same result and finally
gave up in disgust. He decided not to renew his offer of the
alternating-current system nor to show his motor in operation,
and resigned his position immediately.
Tesla was undoubtedly entitled to an amount in excess of $25,000
for the regulators he designed and for his services in Strassburg.
Had the executives been endowed with even a smattering of horse
sense, or the ordinary garden variety of honesty, they would
have made an attempt to settle for $5,000, at the least. Tesla,
hard pressed for cash, would undoubtedly have accepted such an
amount, although with a feeling that he was being cheated in
a large way.
Such an offer would probably have held Tesla on the payroll
of the company and preserved for it the possession of the world's
greatest inventor and one who at the time had definitely demonstrated
he was an extremely valuable employee.
For a paltry few thousand dollars they lost not only a man
who would have saved them many times that amount every year,
but they also lost an opportunity to obtain world control of
the greatest and most profitable electrical invention ever made.
One of the administrators of the company, Mr. Charles Batchellor,
Manager of the works, who was a former assistant and close personal
friend of Thomas A. Edison, urged Tesla to go to the United States
and work with Edison. There he would have a chance to work on
improvements to the Edison dynamos and motors. Tesla decided
to follow Mr. Batchellor's suggestion. He sold his books and
all other personal possessions except a few articles which he
expected to take with him. He assembled his very limited financial
resources, purchased tickets for his railroad trip and transatlantic
journey to New York. His baggage consisted of a small bundle
of clothes carried under his arm and some other items stuffed
into his pockets.
The final hours were busy ones and, as he was about to board
the train, just as it was ready to pull out of the station, he
discovered his package of baggage was missing. Reaching quickly
for his wallet, which contained his railroad and steamship tickets
and all his money, he was horrified to discover that that too
was missing. There was some loose change in his pocket, how much
he did not know--he did not have time to count it. His train
was pulling out. what should he do? If he missed this train,
he would also miss the boat--but he could not ride on either
without tickets. He ran alongside the moving train, trying to
make up his mind. His long legs enabled him to keep up with it
without dificulty at first, but now it was gaining speed. He
finally decided to jump aboard. The loose change he discovered
was suficient to take care of the railroad fare, with a negligible
remainder. He explained his situation to the skeptical steamship
oficials and, when no one else showed up to claim his reservations
on the ship up to the time of sailing, he was permitted to embark.
To one as fastidious as Tesla, a long steamship journey without
adequate clothing was a trying experience. He had expected to
encounter annoyances when getting along with the minimum amount
of clothing which he planned carrying with him, but when even
that limited layout was lost the annoyance became hardship. Coupled
with this was the memory of disappointment and resentment over
his recent experiences.
The ship offered little to interest him. He explored it thoroughly
and in doing so made some contacts with members of the ship's
company. There was unrest among the crew. There was unrest in
Tesla also. He extended sympathy to members of the crew in their
claimed unjust treatment. The grievances affecting the crew had
built up one of those situations in which a small spark can cause
a large explosion. The spark flew somewhere on the ship while
Tesla was below decks in the crew's quarters. The captain and
oficers got tough and, with some loyal members of the crew, decided
to settle the trouble with belaying pins as clubs. It quickly
became a battle royal. Tesla found himself in the middle of a
fight which when anyone saw a head he hit it.
Had Tesla not been young as well as tall and strong, his useful
career might have ended at this point. He had long arms in proportion
to his six feet two inches of height. The fist at the end of
his arm could reach as far as a club in the hands of an adversary,
and his height enabled him to tower over the other fighters so
his head was not easy to reach. He struck hard and often, never
knowing for or against which side he was fighting. He was on
his feet when the fight was over, something which could not be
said of a score of the crew members. The oficers had subdued
what they called a mutiny, but they too carried indications that
they had been through a battle. Tesla was definitely not invited
to sit at the captain's table during the voyage.
He spent the remainder of his journey nursing scores of bruises
and sitting in meditation at the stern of the ship, which too
slowly made its way to New York. Soon he would set foot on the
"land of golden promise" and meet the famous Mr. Edison.
He was destined to learn that it was really a "land of golden
promise"--but also to discover something that would open
his eyes about the fulfillment of promises.
when Tesla stepped out of the Immigration Ofice at Castle
Garden, Manhattan, in the summer of 1884, his possessions consisted
of four cents, a book of his own poems, a couple of technical
articles he had written, calculations for designing a flying
machine, and some mathematical work done in an effort to solve
an extremely dificult integral. He had Mr. Batchellor's letter
introducing him to Mr. Edison, and the address of a friend. In
this letter to Edison, Batchellor wrote: "I know two great
men and you are one of them; the other is this young man."
Lacking carfare, Tesla had to walk the several miles to his
friend's home. The first person he spoke to, seeking traveling
directions, was a policeman, a gruff individual. The way he supplied
the information suggested to Tesla that he was willing to start
a fight on the subject. Although Tesla spoke English very well,
all he understood of the policeman's lingo was the direction
in which he pointed his club.
while walking in what he believed was the right direction,
wondering how he would be able to contrive a meal and lodgings
out of four cents should he be unable to locate his friend, he
passed a shop in which he could see a man working on an electrical
machine that seemed to him familiar. He entered just as the man
was about to give up as impossible the task of repairing the
device.
"Let me do it," said Tesla, "I will make it
operate." And without more ado he tackled the job. It proved
to be a dificult task but eventually the machine was working
again.
"I need a man like you to handle these blankety-blank
foreign machines," said the man. "Do you want a job?"
Tesla thanked him and told him he was on his way to another
job, whereupon the man handed him twenty dollars. Tesla had expected
no compensation for doing what he considered a slight favor,
and said so, but the man insisted his work was worth that much,
and he was glad to pay it. Never was Tesla more thankful for
a windfall. He was now assured of food and lodgings for the time
being. With the aid of walking directions, this time more graciously
given, he located his friend and was a guest at his home overnight.
The next day he went to Edison's New York headquarters, then
on South Fifth Avenue (now West Broadway).
The introduction by Mr. Batchellor gave him ready access to
Mr. Edison, who was busily engaged in problems in connection
with his new generating station and electric-light system--the
former located in downtown Pearl Street and serving a relatively
small radius of territory.
Tesla was favorably impressed by Edison on their first meeting.
He marveled that a man so limited in education could accomplish
so much in so technical a field as electricity. It caused Tesla
to wonder if all the time he had spent in gaining an education
of very broad scope had not been wasted. would he have been further
ahead if he had started his practical work on the basis of experience,
as Edison had done? He definitely decided, however, before many
days had passed, that the time and effort he had spent on his
education constituted the wisest kind of an investment.
Edison, for his part, was none too favorably impressed by
Tesla. Edison was an inventor who got his results by trial-and-error
methods. Tesla calculated everything mentally and solved his
problems before doing any "work" on them. As a result,
the two great men spoke an entirely different technical language.
There was one more very important difference. Edison belonged
to the direct-current and Tesla to the alternating-current school
of thought. The electricians of that day could, and did, become
highly emotional over their differences of opinion on this subject.
Discussions roused all the fervor of a religious or political
debate, and everything unpleasant was associated with the adherents
on the other side of the discussion. The least unpleasant thought
applied to an opponent was that he was of a low order of mentality.
When Tesla enthusiastically described his polyphase system and
told Edison he believed alternating-current was the only practical
kind of current to use in a power-and-lighting system, Edison
laughed. Edison was using direct current in his system. He told
Tesla very bluntly he was not interested in alternating-current;
there was no future to it and anyone who dabbled in that field
was wasting his time; and besides, it was a deadly current whereas
direct current was safe. Tesla did not yield any ground in the
discussion--nor could he make any progress in his effort to get
Edison to listen to a presentation of his polyphase power system.
On technical grounds, they were worlds apart.
Nevertheless, because of Batchellor's statement on the valuable
work he had done on the Edison direct-current machines in Europe,
Tesla was, without much formality, given a job on Edison's staff--doing
minor routine work. A few weeks later he had an opportunity to
demonstrate his ability. Edison had installed one of his electric-light
plants on the steamship Oregon, the fastest and most up-to-date
passenger ship of that time. The installation worked well for
many months but finally both dynamos went out of commission.
It was impossible to remove the dynamos and install new ones,
so it was necessary to repair the old ones in some way--but this,
Edison had been told, was impossible without taking them to the
shop. The scheduled sailing date of the ship had passed and Edison
was being placed in an embarrassing position over the accumulating
days of delay caused by his machines.
Edison asked Tesla if he would go to the ship and see what
could be done about the situation. This was in the afternoon.
Taking such instruments as he thought he would need, Tesla went
aboard the Oregon. He found that short circuits had caused some
of the armature coils to be burned out; and open circuits had
developed elsewhere on the machines.
Calling on members of the crew to assist him, Tesla worked
through the night and by 4 am had both machines running as well
as they did the day they were newly installed. walking back to
the shop on lower Fifth Avenue at 5 am, in the dim early dawn
he met a group of men just leaving. In it were Edison, Batchellor,
who had returned from Paris in the meantime, and several others
who had finished their night's work and were returning to their
homes.
"Here is our Parisian running around nights," said
Edison.
"Am just coming back from the Oregon," Tesla replied.
"Both machines are operating."
Edison, amazed, shook his head and turned away without another
word. On rejoining the group he said to Batchellor, loud enough
for the keen-eared Tesla to hear him, "Batchellor, this
is a damn good man."
Thereafter Tesla's status on the staff was raised several
levels and he was given closer contact with design and operating
problems. He found the work interesting and applied himself to
it more than eighteen hours a day, from 10:30 am until 5 am,
every day including Sundays. Edison, observing his industry,
told him, "I have had many hard-working assistants but you
take the cake." Tesla observed many ways in which the dynamos
could be improved in design to operate more efficiently. He outlined
his plan to Edison, and stressed the increased output and lower
cost of operating that would result from the changes he suggested.
Edison, quick to appreciate the value of increased efficiency,
replied, "There's fifty thousand dollars in it for you if
you can do it."
Tesla designed twenty-four types of dynamos, eliminating the
long-core field magnets then in use and substituting the more
efficient short cores, and provided some automatic controls,
on which patents were taken out. Months later, when the task
was finished, and some of the new machines built and tested and
found measuring up to his promises, Tesla asked to be paid the
$50,000. Edison replied, "Tesla, you don't understand our
American humor." Tesla was shocked to discover that what
he thought was a specific promise was being tossed aside merely
as a standard practical joke of the day. He received not a penny
of compensation from the new designs and inventions, or for the
tremendous amount of overtime, beyond the none too generous weekly
pay. He resigned his job immediately. This was in the spring
of 1885.
In the period of less than a year which he spent with Edison,
Tesla had developed a good reputation in electrical circles;
so when he was free he was offered an opportunity to capitalize
on it. A group of promoters offered to form a company under his
name. This looked like a possible chance to bring out his alternating-current
system, and he eagerly entered into the project. But when he
urged his plan, the promoters informed him they were not interested
in alternating-current. what they wanted him to develop was a
practical arc light for street and factory illumination. In about
a year he developed the desired lamp, took out several patents
on his invention, and its manufacture and use were under way.
From a technical point of view the venture was a success,
but Tesla himself suffered another painful financial experience
in connection with it. He had been paid a comparatively small
salary during the period of development. According to the agreement,
he was to receive his principal compensation in the form of shares
of stock in the company. He received a beautifully engraved stock
certificate, and then, by some manipulations he did not understand,
he was forced out of the company and aspersions were cast upon
his ability as an engineer and an inventor. When he sought to
convert the certificate into cash, he found that the shares of
newly organized companies of undemonstrated power to earn dividends
possess very slight value. His opinion of financial men in both
the Old World and the New was taking on a decidedly uncomplimentary
bias.
Now came the most unpleasant experience of Tesla's life. He
was without a source of income, and from the spring of 1886 to
the spring of 1887 he was forced to work as a day laborer. "I
lived," he said, "through a year of terrible heartaches
and bitter tears, my suffering being intensified by material
want." Business conditions were none too good in the country.
Not only did he have difficulty in getting anyone to listen to
his alternating-current project, but even in his effort to earn
room and board as a laborer he had tremendous competition, and
found it none too easy to secure the most menial tasks at almost
starvation wages. He would never discuss this period of his life,
probably because it was so unpleasant that he banished all thoughts
of it from his memory. Some electrical repair work and even ditch
digging at $2 a day were among the jobs he tackled. He resented
the utter waste of his abilities more than the personal degradation
involved. His education, he said, seemed a mockery.
During the winter of early 1887, while engaged in ditch digging,
he attracted the attention of the foreman of the gang who, too,
was being forced by circumstances to work below his accustomed
level. The foreman was impressed by Tesla's story of his inventions
and his great hopes for his alternating-current system. Through
this foreman, Tesla said, he was introduced to Mr. A. K. Brown
of the Western Union Telegraph Company who put up some of his
own money and interested a friend in joining him in Tesla's project.
These two gentlemen organized and financed the Tesla Electric
Company, and in April, 1887, established a laboratory at 33-35
South Fifth Avenue (now West Broadway), near Bleecker Street,
not far from the shop of the Edison Company. Edison had turned
down Tesla's alternating-current idea--and now Tesla was his
neighbor with a laboratory of his own, starting to develop the
competing idea. Within this small area was to be fought the great
battle of the electrical industry over the question of whether
direct or alternating current should be used. Edison, already
famous, was wholeheartedly committed to direct current; his powerhouses
were operating in several cities and, in addition, he had the
support of the famous financier, J. P. Morgan. Tesla, on the
other hand, was unknown and had only very modest financial support.
The direct current was technically simple, whereas alternating-current
was technically complex. Tesla knew, however, that in these complexities
were unlimited possibilities for usefulness.
Tesla's dark days were over. yet he was soon to discover that
the acceptance or rejection of the alternating-current system
was not based on technical facts but upon financial considerations,
emotional reactions and prejudices, and that human nature was
a bigger factor than scientific truths. Nevertheless, in a short
time, he would see some of his greatest hopes and dreams realized,
and success in large measure reward his efforts.
Once he had achieved something resembling fair conditions
under which to carry on his work, the rising star of Tesla's
genius shot across the electrical heavens like a meteor. As soon
as the newly organized Tesla Electric Company opened its South
Fifth Avenue laboratories he started the construction of a variety
of pieces of dynamo electric machinery. It was not necessary
for him to do any calculating, or work out blueprints. Everything
was crystal clear in his mind down to the finest detail of each
piece of apparatus. As a result he very quickly produced the
working units with which he demonstrated the principles of his
polyphase alternating-current system. The single piece of apparatus
he had built while in Strassburg, the first model of the induction
motor, supplied the physical proof he needed that all the remainder
of his calculations were correct.
The apparatuses built in his new laboratory were identical
with those which he conceived during the two months in Budapest
following the remarkable revelation of the principle of the revolving
magnetic field. He did not make the slightest change, he said,
in the machines he had mentally constructed at that time. When
the machines were physically constructed not one of them failed
to operate as he had anticipated. Five years had elapsed since
he evolved the designs. In the meantime he had not committed
a line to paper--yet he had remembered perfectly every last detail.
Tesla produced as rapidly as the machines could be constructed
three complete systems of alternating-current machinery--for
single-phase, two-phase and three-phase currents--and made experiments
with four- and six-phase currents. In each of the three principal
systems he produced the dynamos for generating the currents,
the motors for producing power from them and transformers for
raising and reducing the voltages, as well as a variety of devices
for automatically controlling the machinery. He not only produced
the three systems but provided methods by which they could be
interconnected, and modifications providing a variety of means
of using each of the systems. A few months after opening the
laboratory he submitted his two-phase motor to Prof. fi. A. Anthony,
of Cornell University, for testing. Prof. Anthony reported that
it had an efficiency equal to that of the best direct-current
motors.
Tesla now not only constructed the machines which he visualized
but he worked out the basic mathematical theory underlying all
of the apparatus. The mathematical theory was so basic that it
covered not only the principles applying to machinery for operation
at 60 cycles per second, which is the frequency now in standard
use, but applied equally well to the whole range of low- and
high-frequency currents. With Edison direct current, it had not
been found practicable to work with potentials higher than 220
volts on distribution systems; but with alternating-current it
was possible to produce and transmit currents of many thousands
of volts, thus permitting economical distribution, and these
could be reduced to the lower voltages for customer use.
Tesla sought to obtain a single patent covering the entire
system and all of its constituent dynamos, transformers, distribution
systems and motors. His patent attorneys, Duncan, Curtis&Page,
filed the application for this patent October 12, 1887, six months
after the laboratory opened and five and a half years after Tesla
had made his rotary magnetic-field invention.
The Patent Ofice, however, objected to considering such an
"omnibus" application and insisted it be broken down
to seven separate inventions, with individual applications filed
on each. Two groups of separate applications were filed, on November
30 and December 23 respectively. These inventions were so original
and covered such a virgin field of electrical science that they
encountered practically no dificulties in the Patent Ofice and
within about six months the patents were issued. (They were numbered
381,968; 381,969; 381,970; 382,279; 382,280; 382,281 and 382,282.
These covered his single and polyphase motors, his distribution
system and polyphase transformers. In April of the following
year, 1888, he applied for and was later granted five more patents,
which included the four-and three-wire three-phase systems. These
were numbered 390,413; 390,414; 390,415; 390,721; and 390,820.
Within the year he applied for and was granted eighteen more:
401,520; 405,858; 405,859; 416,191; 416,192; 416,193; 416,194;
416,195; 418,248; 424,036; 433,700; 433.701; 433,702; 433,703;
445,207; 445,067; 459,772 and 464,666.)
As a succession of fundamental patents started to issue from
the Patent Ofice to Tesla, the attention of the electrical engineering
profession was drawn to this practically unknown inventor. The
significance of his epoch-making discoveries was quickly grasped
and he was invited to deliver a lecture before the American Institute
of Electrical Engineers on May 16, 1888. This invitation was
evidence that he had "arrived." Tesla accepted the
invitation and put his whole heart into preparing the lecture
which, he felt, would enable him to tell the electrical world
the magnificent story of his complete alternating-current system
and the tremendous advantages it possessed over direct-current.
This lecture became a classic of the electrical engineering
field. In it Tesla presented the theory and practical application
of alternating-current to power engineering. This, with his patents,
described the foundation, in the matter of circuits, machines
and operation, and theory, upon which almost the entire electrical
system of the country was established and is still operating
today. No new development of anything even slightly approaching
comparable magnitude has been made in the field of electrical
engineering down to the present time.
Tesla's lecture, and the inventions and discoveries which
he included in it, established him before the electrical engineering
profession as the father of the whole field of alternating-current
power system, and the outstanding inventor in the electrical
field.
It is not easy to visualize the tremendous burst of electrical
development and progress that came out of Tesla's laboratory
in the few months after he established it. He produced a tidal
wave of advancement which carried the electrical world into the
opening of the new power age in one grand surge--although it
took several years, naturally, for the commercial exploitation
to get under way. The world of electrical engineering was amazed,
bewildered and mystified by the host of discoveries thrown into
its midst in rapid succession from the Tesla laboratory, and
was filled with admiration for the prodigious new genius who
had flared up within its ranks.
Tesla's power system, employing high voltage for transmission,
released electrical powerhouses using direct current from functioning
as purely local enterprises, capable of serving an area within
a radius of one mile at the very most. His motors used alternating-current
that could be economically transmitted hundreds of miles, and
he provided an economical two- and three-phase system for transmission
lines.
The stupendous changes which the Tesla alternating-current
inventions and discoveries brought about in the electrical industry
can be realized by considering the handicap under which the direct-current
powerhouses of the Edison system had operated up to that time.
Electricity was generated in powerhouses by relatively small-size
dynamos, and the current then distributed to customers over copper
conductors laid in conduits under the streets. Some of the electrical
energy fed into these conductors at the powerhouse did not arrive
as electricity at the far end of the line but was converted along
the route to useless heat by the resistance of the conductors.
Electrical energy is composed of two factors, the current,
or amount of electricity, and the voltage, or the pressure under
which the current is moved. Resistance losses were undergone
by the current regardless of the voltage. One ampere of current
experienced a definite loss caused by resistance and this loss
was the same whether the pressure was 100, or 1,000 or 100,000
volts. If the current value remained fixed, then the amount of
energy transported over a wire varied with the voltage. There
is, for example, 100,000 times as much energy transported over
a wire carrying a current of one ampere at 100,000 volts as there
is when the current is one ampere and the pressure is one volt.
If the amount of current carried by a wire is doubled, the
heat losses are increased four fold; if the current is tripled,
these losses are increased nine fold, and if the current is increased
four fold, the losses rise sixteen fold. This situation put definite
limits to the amount of current which could be loaded on to conductors.
In addition there is an accompanying drop in pressure. In
a half-mile-long conductor, of the size adopted and under the
average currents carried, there would be a drop of about 30 volts.
To compensate for this, to some extent, the dynamos were designed
to generate 120 volts instead of the standard 110 volts for which
lamps were designed. Near the powerhouse the customers would
get excess voltage--and a half-mile away their current would
be delivered at 90 volts. The early Edison carbon lamps were
none too brilliant at 110 volts and gave much less than satisfactory
illumination at 90 volts.
As a result of this situation the generation and distribution
of direct-electric current became very much of a localized matter.
The Edison powerhouse could serve an area less than a mile in
diameter. In order to give service to a large city it would be
necessary to have a powerhouse in every square mile, or even
closer if a uniformly satisfactory current were to be supplied.
Outside large cities the situation became even more dificult.
This was a severe handicap if electricity was to become the universal
power source.
Tesla's alternating-current power system, which Edison so
emphatically rejected when it was offered to him, freed electricity
from its bondage to local isolation. Not alone were his alternating-current
motors more simple and flexible than the direct-current machines,
but it was possible by a highly efficient method of using transformers,
which consisted of two coils of wire around an iron core, to
step up the voltage and simultaneously step down the current
in a proportionate amount, or use the process in reverse. The
amount of energy involved, however, would remain practically
unchanged.
Copper wire entails a heavy investment when it is bought by
the mile. The diameter of the wire sets the limit to the amount
of current it will carry. With the Edison direct-current system
there was no practical way for transforming an electric current.
The voltage remained fixed and when the current was increased
to the carrying capacity of the wire no further expansion was
possible on that circuit.
With the Tesla system the amount of energy a wire would transport
would be increased tremendously by increasing the voltage and
letting the current remain fixed below the carrying limit of
the circuit. A very small wire could carry a thousand or more
times as much electrical energy in the Tesla polyphase alternating
system as it could in the Edison direct-current system.
By using Tesla's alternating-current system electricity could
be delivered economically at vast distances from the powerhouse.
It would be possible, if desired, to burn coal at the mouth of
a mine for generating electricity, and deliver the current cheaply
at distant cities, or to generate electricity where water power
was available and transmit it to distant points where it could
be used.
Tesla rescued the electrical giant from the apron strings
of the powerhouse and gave it geographical freedom, the opportunity
to expand into the wide-open spaces and work its magic. He laid
the foundation for our present superpower system. A development
of such magnitude was bound to be loaded with dynamite, and action
was sure to follow as soon as someone set a match to the fuse.
TESLA'S spectacular lecture and demonstration before the American
Institute of Electrical Engineers in New York focused on his
work the attention of the electrical fraternity throughout the
world. There was no doubt in the mind of the vast majority of
electrical engineers that Tesla's discoveries created a new epoch
in the electrical industry. But what could be done about it?
There were few manufacturers who could take advantage of it.
His discoveries were in the same predicament as a ten-pound diamond.
No one would question the value of the stone but who would be
in a position to purchase it or make any use of it?
Tesla had given no specific thought to commercializing his
work at this time. He was in the midst of a program of experimental
work which was far from complete and he desired to finish it
before engaging in another line of activity. He expected that
there would be no alternative to establishing his own company
and engaging in the manufacture of his dynamos, motors and transformers.
Such a course would take him away from the original experimental
work which greatly fascinated him, and which he did not wish
to interrupt. Commercializing his inventions, therefore, was
a problem that could be postponed, as far as he was concerned,
at least as long as the present financing of his work continued.
George Westinghouse, head of the Westinghouse Electric Company
in Pittsburgh, was a man of vision. He was already famous as
an inventor of numerous electrical devices but principally for
his air brake for trains, and had made a fortune out of the exploitation
of his own inventions. He recognized the tremendous commercial
possibilities presented by Tesla's discoveries and the vast superiority
of the alternating- over the direct- current system. He was a
practical man of business and was not limited in his choice between
the two systems.
Edison, head of the Edison General Electric Company, on the
other hand, was under a limitation. Edison's invention was the
incandescent electric lamp. Having developed this project, he
was faced with finding some way to use it commercially. In order
to sell his lamps to the public it was necessary to make the
electricity available for lighting them. This necessitated the
building of powerhouses and distribution systems. Another kind
of electric lamp was already available--the arc lamp--in which
he was but slightly interested. The Edison system powerhouses
were standardized on low-voltage direct current. At that time
direct-current motors were in use, and most technical men believed
it was not at all likely there would ever be a practical alternating-current
motor. The direct-current system, therefore, offered a number
of advantages of a practical nature from Edison's viewpoint.
Westinghouse had no pet project comparable to the incandescent
lamp around which he had to throw protecting conditions such
as direct-current limitations, so he could look at the Tesla
alternating-current discoveries from an unbiased and purely objective
point of view. He reached his decision a month after Tesla's
lecture. Having done this, he forwarded a brief note to Tesla,
making an engagement to see him in the latter's laboratory.
The two inventors had not previously met but each of them
was well acquainted with the other's work. Westinghouse, born
in 1846, was ten years older than Tesla. He was a short, stout,
bearded, impressive-looking individual, and had a habit of directness
in conducting his affairs that amounted almost to bluntness.
Tesla, thirty-two years old, was tall, dark, handsome, slender
and suave. They made a strongly contrasting pair as they stood
in Tesla's laboratory, but they had three things in common: they
both were inventors, engineers and loved electricity. Tesla had
in his laboratory dynamos, transformers, and motors with which
he could demonstrate his discoveries and models in actual operating
conditions. Here Westinghouse was right at home and quickly became
completely sold on the inventor and his inventions.
So favorably impressed was Westinghouse that he decided to
act quickly. The story was related to the author by Tesla.
"I will give you one million dollars cash for your alternating-current
patents, plus royalty," Westinghouse blurted at the startled
Tesla. This tall, suave gentleman, however, gave no outward sign
that he had almost been bowled over by surprise.
"If you will make the royalty one dollar per horsepower,
I will accept the offer," Tesla replied.
"A million cash, a dollar a horsepower royalty,"
Westinghouse repeated.
"That is acceptable," said Tesla.
"Sold," said Westinghouse. "you will receive
a check and a contract in a few days."
Here was a case of two great men, each possessed with the
power of seeing visions of the future on a gigantic panorama,
and each with complete faith in the other, arranging a tremendous
transaction with utter disregard of details.
The amount involved was unquestionably a record one, for that
time, for an invention. while Tesla liked to think of his complete
polyphase system as a single invention, he was, nevertheless,
selling about twenty inventions on which patents were already
issued, and about as many more still to issue. With a total of
forty patents involved in the transaction, most of them strongly
basic in nature, he received, therefore, about $25,000 per patent.
Westinghouse thereby obtained a record-breaking bargain by buying
the patents in wholesale quantities.
Westinghouse arranged with Tesla to come to Pittsburgh "at
a high salary" for a year, to act as consultant in the commercial
application of his inventions. The generous offer made by the
Pittsburgh magnate for the purchase of his patents made it unnecessary
for Tesla to have any more worries about having to devote a major
portion of his time to exploiting his inventions commercially
through his own company. He could afford, therefore, to give
this year of his time.
The apparatus which Tesla demonstrated to Westinghouse when
the latter visited his laboratory, and which worked so beautifully,
was designed for operation with a current of 60 cycles. Tesla's
investigation had demonstrated that this was the frequency at
which the greatest efficiency of operation could be achieved.
At higher frequencies there was a saving in the amount of iron
required; but the drop in efficiency, and design dificulties
that developed, were not compensated for by the very small saving
in cost of metal. At lower frequencies the amount of iron required
increased, and the apparatus grew in size faster than increased
efficiency justified.
Tesla went to Pittsburgh and expected to clear up all problems
in less than a year. Here, though, he encountered engineers who
faced the problem of producing a motor with a design that would
insure, first, certainty of smooth and reliable operation; second,
economy of operation; third, economy in use of materials; fourth,
ease of manufacture; as well as other problems. Tesla had these
problems in mind but not with the urgency with which the engineers
faced them. In addition he was quite adamant in the choice of
60 cycles as the standard frequency for alternating current while
engineers, who had experience on 133 cycles, were not so sure
that the lower frequency would be best for the Tesla motors.
At any rate there was conflict between the inventor, interested
mainly in principles, and engineers interested in practical design
problems. Very definite problems were encountered in making the
Tesla motor work on a single-phase current in small sizes. In
this type of design, artifices had to be incorporated in the
motor to achieve some of the characteristics of a two-phase current
from the single-phase current that was supplied to operate it.
Tesla was thoroughly disgusted with the situation. He felt
his advice concerning his own invention was not being accepted,
so he quit Pittsburgh. Westinghouse was sure the situation would
work itself out. Seeking to persuade Tesla to remain, he offered
him, Tesla revealed many years later, twenty-four thousand dollars
a year, one third of the net income of the company and his own
laboratory, if he would stay on and direct the development of
his system. Tesla, now wealthy and anxious to return to original
research, rejected the offer.
Development work proceeded after Tesla left, and soon practical
designs were produced for all sizes of motors and dynamos, and
their manufacture started. Tesla was happy to note that the 60-cycle
standard, his emphatic choice, but which had been questioned
on the ground it was less practical in small units, had been
adopted as the standard frequency.
On returning to his New York laboratory, Tesla declared that
he had not made a single worth-while contribution to electrical
science during the year he spent at Pittsburgh. "I was not
free at Pittsburgh," he explained; "I was dependent
and could not work. To do creative work I must be completely
free. When I became free of that situation ideas and inventions
rushed through my brain like a Niagara." During the following
four years he devoted a large fraction of his time to further
developments of his polyphase power system, and applied for,
and was granted, forty-five patents. Those granted in foreign
countries would bring the total to several times this number.
The ideas of the two giants among inventors--Edison and Tesla--were
meeting in head-on battle. Out of the laboratories of the two
geniuses, within sight of each other in South Fifth Avenue in
New York, had come world-shaking developments.
There had been considerable conflict between Edison, who adhered
strictly to direct current, and those who supported the claims
for alternating current. The Thomson-Houston Company and the
Westinghouse Electric Company had extensively developed this
field for series electric lighting and arc lighting before the
Tesla power system was developed. Edison had engaged in many
tilts at these competitors, attacking alternating-current as
unsafe because of the high voltages used. The advent of the Tesla
system added fuel to the fire.
It was Tesla's belief that when the New York State Prison
authorities adopted high-voltage alternating current for electrocution
of condemned prisoners, the Edison interests had engineered the
project to discredit alternating current. There is no doubt about
the aid the prison authorities' choice gave the direct-current
group; but their decision was undoubtedly based on the fact that
direct current could not, by any practical means, be produced
at the high voltages required, whereas alternating-current potentials
could be very easily increased. Direct current is just as deadly,
at the same voltage and amperage, as alternating current. In
this "war of the currents," however, as in other wars,
appeal to the emotions, instead of to simple facts, were the
governing influences.
The task of putting the United States on an electrical power
basis--which is what George Westinghouse undertook when he began
to exploit the Tesla patent--was a gigantic one requiring not
only engineering talent but capital. The Westinghouse Electric
Company experienced a tremendous expansion in the volume of its
business, but the upward surge came at a time when the country
was going into a stage of commercial and financial depression;
and Westinghouse soon found himself in dificulties.
This was, in addition, an era in which competing giant financial
interests were battling for control of the industrial structure
of the country through control of capital. It was a time of mergers,
a period when the financial interests were building larger units
of production by uniting smaller companies in related fields,
frequently forcing these combinations without regard to what
the owners of the companies desired.
One merger, internally initiated and arranged by mutual consent,
brought together the Thomson-Houston Company and the Edison General
Electric Company, the two biggest competitors of Westinghouse
Electric, to form the present General Electric Company. This
was a challenge to competing financial interests.
Westinghouse had expanded his business at a very rapid rate
in exploiting the Tesla patents. Because his financial structure
thereby lost a certain amount of flexibility, he became vulnerable
to financial operators and soon found himself in the toils of
a merger that involved uniting several other small companies
with his organization. Financial interests that had stepped into
the situation demanded that the Westinghouse Electric Company
be reorganized as a step toward bringing about a merger with
it of the U. S. Electric Company and the Consolidated Electric
Light Company, the new unit to be known as the Westinghouse Electric
and Manufacturing Company.
Before this reorganization would be consummated the financial
advisers, in strategic positions, insisted that Westinghouse
jettison some of his plans and projects which they considered
inadvisable or a detriment to getting the new company onto a
new foundation that would be sounder from a financial point of
view.
One of the requirements was that Westinghouse get rid of the
contract with Tesla calling for royalty payments of $1 per horsepower
on all alternating-current articles sold under his patents. (No
documentary evidence exists concerning this contract. The author
located two sources of information. One was in complete agreement
with the story here related. The other states that the million-dollar
payment was advance royalties and Tesla so described it to him,
declaring no further royalties were paid.) The financial advisers
pointed out that if the business which Westinghouse expected
the company would do under the Tesla patents in the ensuing year
was anywhere near as great as estimated, the amount to be paid
out under this contract would be tremendous, totaling millions
of dollars; and this, at the time of reorganization, appeared
a dangerous burden, imperiling the stability which they were
trying to attain for the new organization.
Westinghouse strenuously objected to the procedure. This patent-royalty
payment, he insisted, was in accordance with usual procedures
and would not be a burden on the company, as it was included
in costs of production, was paid for by the customers, and did
not come out of the company's earnings. Westinghouse, himself
an inventor of first magnitude, had a strong sense of justice
in his dealings with inventors.
The financial advisers, however, were not to be overruled.
They nailed Westinghouse on the spot by insisting that the million
dollars he had paid Tesla was more than adequate compensation
for an invention, and that by making such an exorbitant payment
he had imperiled the financial structure of his company and jeopardized
his bankers' interest. Any further imperiling of the reorganization
by any effort to retain the royalty contract would, it was argued,
result in the withdrawing of support that would save the company.
The situation boiled down to the common "Either-Or"
technique.
Westinghouse was required to handle the negotiations with
Tesla. No situation could be more embarrassing to him. Nevertheless,
Westinghouse was a realist among realists. He never hesitated
to face facts squarely and with a blunt directness. "I will
give you one million dollars cash for your alternating-current
patents, plus royalty": he had been both brief and blunt
when he purchased the patents from Tesla. Now he was faced with
the problem of undoing the situation into which he had entered
with such brevity. Then money talked and he held the money. Now
Tesla held the dominant position; he held a perfectly valid contract
worth many millions, and he could go to court to force compliance
with its terms. Edison's successful suit against infringers of
his electric-light patent, bringing disaster to many companies
that violated his patent property rights, had caused the whole
industrial world to hold a new and wholesome respect for patent
rights.
Westinghouse had no reason for believing that Tesla would
show the slightest inclination to relinquish his contract or
permit its terms to be changed to provide a smaller rate of royalty.
He knew that Tesla's pride had been hurt by the disagreement
with the Pittsburgh engineers, and that he might not now be in
a conciliatory mood. On the other hand, Westinghouse knew that
he had succeeded in having Tesla's ideas adopted. His greatest
comfort came from the fact that he had entered into the contract
with good faith--and with the same good faith he was trying to
handle a much less satisfactory situation. Perhaps he could offer
Tesla an executive position in the company in lieu of the contract.
There would be mutual advantages in such an arrangement.
There is no means of fixing the definite value of the contract
Tesla held. His patents covered every department of the new alternating-current
power system, and royalties could be collected on powerhouse
equipment and motors. At that time the electric power industry
had barely started; no one could look into the future and see
the tremendous volume of business that would be developed. (The
latest data available indicate that in 1941 there was 162,000,000
horsepower of electrical generating machinery in operation in
the United States, practically all of it for alternating current.
Assuming a uniform growth from 1891 to 1941, the installed horsepower
in 1905, when the first Tesla patents would have expired, would
have been about twenty million. This figure is, apparently, too
high.
According to a census of central stations in the United States
conducted by T. Commerford Martin (Electrical World, March 14,
1914) the horsepower of generators in operation in 1902 was 1,620,000
and in 1907 the figure had risen to 6,900,000. On a pro rata,
per-year basis, this would make the figure for 1905, the year
when Tesla's first patents expired, 5,000,000. During this period
many manufacturers who had been using steam power installed dynamos
in their factories and operated isolated plants. These would
not be included in the central-station figures and, if added,
would bring the total horsepower to perhaps 7,000,000. Tesla
would have been entitled to $7,000,000 royalties on this equipment,
on the basis of his $1-per-horsepower arrangement. In addition
he would have been entitled to royalties on motors that used
the power generated by these dynamos. If only three quarters
of the current generated were used for power, this would have
entitled him to additional royalties of $5,000,000, or a total
of $12,000,000.)
It would be a tough job for any executive, no matter how shrewd
or clever, to talk a man out of a contract that would net him
many millions of dollars, or induce him to accept a reduction
in rates amounting to millions.
Westinghouse called on Tesla, meeting him in the same South
Fifth Avenue laboratory where he had purchased the patents four
years before. Without preliminaries or apologies Westinghouse
explained the situation.
"your decision," said the Pittsburgh magnate, "determines
the fate of the Westinghouse Company."
"Suppose I should refuse to give up my contract; what
would you do then?" asked Tesla.
"In that event you would have to deal with the bankers,
for I would no longer have any power in the situation,"
Westinghouse replied.
"And if I give up the contract you will save your company
and retain control so you can proceed with your plans to give
my polyphase system to the world?" Tesla continued.
"I believe your polyphase system is the greatest discovery
in the field of electricity," Westinghouse explained. "It
was my efforts to give it to the world that brought on the present
difficulty, but I intend to continue, no matter what happens,
to proceed with my original plans to put the country on an alternating-current
basis."
"Mr. Westinghouse," said Tesla, drawing himself
up to his full height of six feet two inches and beaming down
on the Pittsburgh magnate who was himself a big man, "you
have been my friend, you believed in me when others had no faith;
you were brave enough to go ahead and pay me a million dollars
when others lacked courage; you supported me when even your own
engineers lacked vision to see the big things ahead that you
and I saw; you have stood by me as a friend. The benefits that
will come to civilization from my polyphase system mean more
to me than the money involved. Mr. Westinghouse, you will save
your company so that you can develop my inventions. Here is your
contract and here is my contract--I will tear both of them to
pieces and you will no longer have any troubles from my royalties.
Is that suficient?"
Matching his actions to his words Tesla tore up the contract
and threw it in the waste basket; and Westinghouse, thanks to
Tesla's magnificent gesture, was able to return to Pittsburgh
and use the facilities of the reorganized company, which became
the present Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company,
to make good his promise to Tesla to make his alternating-current
system available to the world.
Probably nowhere in history is there recorded so magnificent
a sacrifice to friendship as that involved in Tesla's stupendous
gift to Westinghouse of $12,000,000 in unpaid royalties, although
Westinghouse personally received only indirect benefits from
it.
It is also probable that the failure to pay Tesla these royalties
resulted in one of the greatest handicaps to scientific and industrial
progress which the human race has experienced. A few years later
Tesla, still an intellectual giant far from the peak of his greatest
growth, still pouring forth a profusion of inventions and discoveries
of first magnitude, equal in importance to his first efforts
which put the world on an electrical power basis, found himself
without funds with which to develop his discoveries, with the
result that many of them have been lost.
Nearly fifty years after this majestic relinquishment of wealth
on the altar of friendship, during which time Tesla had had opportunity
to see the United States and the world as a whole wax wealthy
out of the power he had made available, he was called on to respond,
with a speech, to honorary citation by the Institute of Immigrant
Welfare. Tesla, then about eighty, was unable to appear in person.
He had experienced decades of poverty in which he faced ridicule
for his failure to develop inventions which he declared he had
made, and had been forced to move frequently from hotel to hotel,
owing to inability to pay his bills. In spite of these experiences
he developed no rancor toward Westinghouse in whose behalf he
sacrificed his $12,000,000 in royalties. Instead, he retained
his original warm friendship. This is indicated by a statement
in the speech he sent to the Institute to be read at its dinner
held in the Hotel Biltmore, May 12, 1938:
"George Westinghouse was, in my opinion, the only man
on this globe who could take my alternating-current system under
the circumstances then existing and win the battle against prejudice
and money power. He was a pioneer of imposing stature, one of
the world's true noblemen of whom America may well be proud and
to whom humanity owes an immense debt of gratitude."
when Tesla left the Westinghouse plant at Pittsburgh in 1889
to return to his laboratory in New York, he entered a new world.
The magnificent polyphase system which he had already produced
was but a small sample of the greater wonders that still remained
to be revealed, and he was anxious to start exploring the new
realm.
He was not approaching an entirely unknown realm in which
he would have to feel his way in darkness in the hope of stumbling
upon something of value, although anyone else at that time would
have been in that position. On that fateful afternoon in February
in Budapest in 1882, when he was given the vision of the rotating
magnetic field, there had come with it an illumination that revealed
to him the whole cosmos, in its infinite variations and its myriad
of forms of manifestations, as a symphony of alternating currents.
For him, the harmonies of the universe were played on a scale
of electrical vibrations of a vast range in octaves. In one of
the lower octaves was a single note, the 60-cycle-per second
alternating current, and in one of the higher octaves was visible
light with its frequency of billions of cycles per second.
Tesla had in mind a course of experimentation in which he
would explore this region of electrical vibration between his
alternating current and light waves. He would increase the frequency
of the alternating current through the unknown intervening regions.
If one note in a lower octave produced such a magnificent invention
as the rotating magnetic field and the polyphase system, who
could imagine the glorious possibilities that lay hidden on other
notes in higher octaves? And there were thousands of octaves
to be explored. He would construct an electrical harmonium by
producing electrical vibrations in all frequencies, and study
their characteristics. He would then, he hoped, be able to understand
the motif of the cosmic symphony of electrical vibrations that
pervaded the entire universe.
Tesla, at the age of thirty-three, was now wealthy. He had
received $1,000,000 from the Westinghouse Company for his first
crop of inventions. Of this, $500,000 went to A. K. Brown and
his associate who had financed his experiments. Still greater
inventions were to follow. He would never need money. He would,
he then believed, have royalties in the millions from his alternating-current
patents. He could spend as freely as he wished, penetrating the
secrets of Nature and applying his discoveries to human welfare.
It was his responsibility to be so engaged. He knew he was gifted
as no other man had been blessed with vision, talent and ability;
and he in turn would endow the world with supernal treasures
of scientific knowledge which he would extract from the secret
recesses of the universe and, through the activities of his mighty
mind, transform into agencies to brighten the lives, lighten
the labors and increase the happiness of the human race.
was he a superegoist in his attitude? If so, he was not activated
by selfish motives. To him it mattered not what he thought, so
long as he remained objective in his thinking and his thoughts
could be translated into demonstrable facts. what if he did consider
himself greater than other men: did not this viewpoint conform
to the facts? Suppose he did consider himself a man of destiny.
Could he not bring evidence to support the contention? It was
not necessary for Tesla actually to see an event occur in order
to enjoy its realization. Had he not as a youth declared that
he would make a practical alternating-current motor, only to
be told by his professor that the goal was impossible of attainment--and
had he not already accomplished this "impossibility"?
Had he not taken the direct-current dynamos of Edison, whom all
the world looked upon as a great genius, and had he not greatly
improved their design and operation; and in addition, had he
not produced a vastly superior system for producing, distributing
and using electricity? To all of these inquiries Tesla could
answer in the afirmative without going beyond the bounds of modesty
concerning his achievements.
His attitude was not that of an egoist. It was an attitude
of supreme faith in himself and in the vision that had been given
him. To a man of ability, with such supreme faith in himself,
and necessary financial resources to advance his purposes, the
world of accomplishments is without limits. This was the picture
of Tesla as he returned to his laboratory in lower Fifth Avenue,
New York, in the latter part of 1889.
Tesla had studied a wide range of frequencies of alternating
current in order to select the frequency at which his polyphase
system would operate most efficiently. His calculations indicated
important changes in characteristics and effects as the frequency
of the current was increased; and his observations with the electrical
machinery he built confirmed his calculations. He noted that
ever smaller quantities of iron were required as the frequencies
were increased, and he now wished to explore the very high frequencies
at which unusual effects should be produced without any iron
in the magnetic circuit.
When, back in Budapest following his rotating magnetic-field
discovery, he had played with mental calculations of the properties
of alternating currents all the way from the very lowest frequency
up to that of light, no one had yet explored this region. James
Clerk Maxwell, at Cambridge University, England, had, however,
nine years before, in 1873, published his beautiful presentation
on an electromagnetic theory of light, and his equations indicated
that there was a vast range of electro-magnetic vibrations above
and below visible light--vibrations of much longer and much shorter
wavelengths. while Tesla was engaged in making models of his
polyphase system in 1887, too, Professor Heinrich Hertz, in Germany,
put the Maxwell theory to test in the range of waves a few meters
long. He was able to produce such waves by the spark discharge
of an induction coil, and was able to absorb such waves from
space and change them back to a small spark at some distance
from the coil.
Hertz's work gave support to Tesla's theory that there was
an interesting discovery to be made on almost every note of the
whole gamut of vibrations between the known ones of the electrical
current and those of light. Tesla felt sure that if he could
continually increase the frequency of electrical vibrations until
they equaled that of light, he would be able to produce light
by a direct and highly efficient process instead of the extremely
wasteful process used in the Edison incandescent lamp, in which
the useful light waves were a very small fraction of the wasted
heat waves emitted in the process, and only five per cent of
the electrical energy was effectively utilized.
Tesla started his investigations by building rotary alternating-current
dynamos with up to 384 magnetic poles, and with these devices
he was able to generate currents up to 10,000 cycles per second.
He found that these high-frequency currents presented many fascinating
possibilities for even more efficient power transmission than
his very practical 60-cycle polyphase system. He therefore carried
on a parallel line of research into transformers for raising
and lowering the voltage of such currents.
High-frequency alternating-current dynamos, similar to those
designed by Tesla in 1890, were subsequently developed by F.
W. Alexanderson into the high-power wireless transmitters which
put transatlantic wireless transmission, more than two decades
later, on such a sound practical basis that the Government would
not permit control of it to go to a foreign country and preserved
for the United States its predominant position in world wireless.
The high-frequency current transformers which Tesla developed
proved to be spectacular performers. They contained not a trace
of iron; as a matter of fact, the presence of iron was found
to interfere with their operation. They were air-core transformers
and consisted merely of concentric primary and secondary coils.
The voltages he was able to produce with these transformers,
which became known as Tesla coils, were very high. In the early
experiments he attained potentials that would spark across a
couple of inches of air, but in a short time he made tremendous
progress and was producing flaming discharges. In working with
these voltages he encountered dificulties in insulating his apparatus,
and so he developed the technique that is now in universal use
in high-tension apparatus: that of immersing the apparatus in
oil and excluding all air from the coils, a discovery of great
commercial importance.
There was a limit, however, above which the use of rotary
generators of high-frequency currents was not practicable, so
Tesla set about the task of developing a different type of generator.
There was nothing novel about the basic idea he employed. In
rotary dynamos, current is generated by moving a wire in a circle
past a number of magnetic poles in succession. The same effect
can be attained by moving the wire back and forth with an oscillating
motion in front of one magnetic pole. No one, however, had as
yet produced a practical reciprocating dynamo. Tesla produced
one that was extremely practical for his particular purpose;
but otherwise it had little utility, and he later felt that he
could have employed much better the time he spent on it. It was
an ingenious single-cylinder engine without valves, and could
be operated by compressed air or steam. It was supplied with
ports like a small two-cycle marine engine. A rod extended from
the piston through the cylinder head at either end, and at each
end of the rods was attached a flat coil of wire which, by the
reciprocating action of the piston, was caused to move back and
forth through the field of an electromagnet. The magnetic field
through its cushioning effect served as a flywheel.
Tesla was able to obtain a speed of 20,000 oscillations per
minute, and to maintain such a remarkable degree of constancy
in operation that he proposed the maintenance of equally constant
speed of operation for his 60-cycle polyphase system and the
use of synchronous motors, geared down to the proper extent,
as clocks which would furnish correct time wherever alternating
current was available. This proposal furnished the foundation
for our modern electric clocks. As with many another of his practical
and useful suggestions, he did not take out a patent on the idea,
and gained no financial advantage from it.
In working with his polyphase system, Tesla gained a thorough
understanding of the part played by the two factors, capacity
and inductance, in alternating-current circuits; the former acting
like a spring and the latter like a storage tank. His calculations
indicated that with currents of suficiently high frequency it
would be possible to produce resonance with relatively small
values of inductance and capacity. Producing resonance is tuning
a circuit electrically. The mechanical effects analogous to electrical
resonance are the causing of a pendulum to swing through a wide
arc by giving it a series of very light but equally timed touches,
or the destruction of a bridge by soldiers marching in unison
over it. Each small vibration re-enforces its predecessors until
tremendous effects are built up.
In a tuned electrical circuit a condenser supplies the capacity
and a coil of wire supplies the inductance. A condenser ordinarily
consists of two parallel metal plates separated from each other
a short distance by an insulating material. Each plate is connected
to either end of the inductance coil. The size of the condenser
and the coil is determined by the frequency of the current. The
coil-condenser combination and the current are tuned to each
other. The current can be pictured as flowing into the condenser
until it is fully charged. It then flows elastically into the
inductance coil, which stores the energy by building up its magnetic
field. When the current ceases to flow in the coil, the magnetic
field collapses and gives back to the coil the energy previously
used in building up the magnetic field, thus causing a current
to flow back into the condenser to charge it up to overflowing
again, so that it is ready to repeat the process. This flow back
and forth between the condenser and coil takes place in step
with the periodic reversal of the alternating current which supplies
the energy when resonance is established. Each time it takes
place, the charging current comes along at the right instant
to give it a boost, so that the oscillations build up to tremendous
values.
Tesla, in discussing this plan of electrical tuning of circuits
in a lecture, given several years later, said:
The first question to answer then is whether pure resonance
effects are producible. Theory and experiment show that such
is impossible in nature for, as the oscillations become more
vigorous, the losses in vibrating bodies and environing media
rapidly increase, and necessarily check the vibrations, which
would otherwise go on increasing forever. It is a fortunate circumstance
that pure resonance is not producible for, if it were, there
is no telling what dangers might lie in wait for the innocent
experimenter. But, to a certain degree, resonance is producible,
the magnitude of the effects being limited by the imperfect conductivity
and imperfect elasticity of the media, or, generally stated,
frictional losses. The smaller these losses the more striking
are the effects.
Tesla applied the electrical tuning principles to his coils
and discovered that he was able to produce tremendous resonance
effects and build up very high voltages. The tuning principles
he developed in 1890 are those which have made our modern radio,
and the development of the earlier art, "wireless,"
possible. He had been working with, and demonstrating, these
principles before others who received credit had begun to learn
the first lessons in electricity.
Seeking a new source of high-frequency currents, higher than
could be produced by any mechanical apparatus, Tesla made use
of a discovery that had been made the year in which he was born,
by Lord Kelvin, in England, in 1856, and for which no use had
thus far been found. Up to the time of Kelvin's discovery it
had been believed that when a condenser was discharged the electricity
flowed out of one plate into the other, like water being poured
from a glass, thus establishing equilibrium. Kelvin showed that
the process was far more interesting and complex; that its action
was like the bobbing up and down that takes place when a weighted
stretched spring is released. The electricity, he showed, rushes
from one plate into the other and then back again, the process
continuing until all of the stored up energy is used up in overcoming
frictional losses. The back-and-forth surges take place at a
tremendously high frequency, hundreds of millions a second.
The combination of condenser discharges and tuned circuits
opened a new realm in electrical science as significant and as
important as Tesla's polyphase system. He worked out remarkably
simple and automatic methods for charging the condensers by low
voltage (direct and alternating currents), and discharging them
through his new air-core transformers, or Tesla coils, to produce
currents of enormously high voltages that oscillated at the tremendously
high frequency of the condenser discharge. The properties of
these currents were unlike anything that had been seen before.
He was again pioneering in an entirely new field, with tremendous
possibilities. He labored feverishly in his laboratory; and as
he lay in bed at night for his five-hours' rest, which included
two hours of sleep, he formulated new experiments.
Tesla announced the heating effect of high-frequency currents
on the body in 1890 and proposed their use as a therapeutic device.
In this he was a pioneer, but soon had many imitators here and
abroad who claimed to be originators. He made no effort to protect
his discovery or prevent the pirating of his invention. When
the same observation was made thirty-five years later in laboratories
using vacuum-tube oscillators as the source of the high-frequency
currents, it was hailed as a new discovery and developed as a
modern wonder. Tesla's original discovery is, however, the basis
of a vast array of very recent electronic applications in which
high-frequency currents are used to produce heat for industrial
purposes.
When he gave his first lecture on the subject before the American
Institute of Electrical Engineers at Columbia College, in May,
1891, he was able to produce spark discharges five inches long,
indicating a potential of about 100,000 volts, but, more important,
he was able to produce phenomena which included, electrical sheets
of flame, and a variety of new forms of illumination--electric
lamps the like of which had never been seen before, nor dreamed
of in the wildest imagination of any experimenter.
This lecture produced a sensation in engineering circles.
He was already famous in this field for the astounding revelations
he had made before the same organization on that earlier occasion
when he described his discovery of the polyphase alternating
current system. That discovery was an intellectual accomplishment
of bewildering brilliance, made impressive by the tremendous
commercial importance of the discovery. The experiments with
the high-frequency and high-potential currents, however, were
spectacular; the crackling of the high-voltage sparks, the flashing
of the high-potential sheets of electrical flame; the brilliant
bulbs and tubes of electrical fire, the amazing physical effects
he produced with the new currents, made a profound emotional
appeal to the startled beholders.
The man who could produce these two pioneering developments
within two years must be more than a genius! The news of his
new accomplishment flashed quickly throughout the world, and
Tesla's fame now rested on a double foundation.
The world-wide fame that came to him at this time was unfortunate.
Tesla would have been entirely superhuman had he not derived
a great deal of satisfaction out of the hero-worshiping adulation
that now came to him. It was only five years ago that he had
been hungry and penniless in the streets of New York, competing
with equally hungry hordes of unemployed for the few existent
jobs calling for brute labor, while his head bulged with important
inventions which he was anxious to give to the world. No one
would listen to him then--and now the intellectual elite of the
nation were honoring him as an unrivaled genius.
Tesla was a spectacular figure in New York in 1891. A tall,
dark, handsome, well-built individual who had a flair for wearing
clothes that gave him an air of magnificence, who spoke perfect
English but carried an atmosphere of European culture which was
worshiped at that time, he was an outstanding personality to
all who beheld him. Hidden behind his quiet, self-effacing demeanor,
and an extreme modesty that manifested itself as an exaggerated
shyness, was the mind of a genius which had worked electrical
wonders that fired the imagination of all and exceeded the understanding
of the vast majority of the population. In addition Tesla was
a young man, not yet thirty-five, who had recently received a
million dollars and was a bachelor.
A bachelor with a million dollars, culture and fame, could
not avoid being a shining mark in New York in the early years
of the gay nineties. Many were the designing matrons with marriageable
daughters who cast envious eyes in the direction of this eligible
young man. The social leaders looked upon him as a fascinating
decoration for their salons. The big men of business looked upon
him as a good man to know. The intellectuals of the day found
his almost unbelievable accomplishments a source of inspiration.
Except at formal dinners Tesla always dined alone, and never
under any circumstances would he dine with a woman at a two-some
dinner. No matter how much a woman might gush over him or strive
to gain his favor, Tesla, in most adamant fashion, maintained
a thoroughly impersonal attitude. At the Waldorf-Astoria and
at Delmonico's he had particular tables which were always reserved
for him. They occupied secluded positions in the dining rooms
because when he entered either room he was the cynosure of all
eyes and did not enjoy being on exhibition.
In spite of all of the adulation that was heaped upon him,
Tesla had but one desire--to continue his laboratory experiments
undisturbed by outside distractions. There was a tremendous empire
of new knowledge to be explored. He was fired with a potential
of enthusiasm for the work that was as high as the voltage of
the currents with which he was working, and new ideas were coming
to him with almost the rapidity of the cycles in his high-frequency
current.
There were three broad fields in which he wished to develop
applications which were now clearly outlined in his mind: a system
of wireless power transmission that would excel his own polyphase
system, a new type of illumination, and the wireless transmission
of intelligence. He wished to work on them all simultaneously.
They were not separate and isolated subjects but all closely
intermeshed, all notes on that vast cosmic scale of vibration
represented by his beloved alternating currents. He did not wish
to play on one note at a time, as would a violinist; he preferred
to play as a pianist, striking many notes at once and weaving
them into beautiful chords. Where it possible to occupy the position
of leader and simultaneously play all of the instruments in a
great symphony orchestra, he would have been still better pleased.
The instruments in his orchestra, however, would be electrical
devices oscillating in tune with their energizing currents or
with their environment. To the extent that he was unable to realize
his most expansive desires, he was under mental pressure that
drove him to a working pace which no individual of ordinary strength
could withstand without a resulting complete physical breakdown.
The spectacular lecture and demonstration on high-frequency
and high-potential currents which he gave before the American
Institute of Electrical Engineers in February, 1891, at Columbia
College, created as profound a sensation as did his earlier one.
Each opened an entirely new realm of scientific investigation
and practical discoveries. The discoveries contained in either
lecture would have been suficient to stand as the fruit of a
lifetime's work and bring lasting fame. Two such events in rapid
succession seemed almost unbelievable--yet Tesla seemed to be
scarcely well launched on his career, with more important work
still to come.
Requests that he give lectures came from learned societies
throughout this country and Europe, but he begged to be excused
because of the tremendous pressure on his time which his work
entailed. Equally insistent were the social demands that were
being made upon him. Social groups sought in every way to honor
him, and incidentally to shine in his reflected glory. Tesla
was not vulnerable to the importunings of the socialites who
sought him merely as a scintillating satellite, but the clever
"lion hunters" of that day soon discovered his Achilles'
heel--an intelligent interest in his accomplishments and a sympathetic
ear for his dreams of wonders still to come.
With this technique in successful operation, Tesla was captured
and soon completely lionized. He was guest of honor at a continuous
round of functions and he met the social obligations involved
in them by staging, in return, elaborate dinners at the Waldorf-Astoria
followed by demonstration parties at his laboratory on South
Fifth Avenue. Tesla never did a halfway job on anything. When
he staged a dinner he left nothing to chance in the matter of
cuisine, service and decorations. He sought rare fish and fowl,
meats of surpassing excellence, and choicest liquors and exquisite
wines of the best vintages. His dinners were the talk of the
town and having been a guest at a Tesla dinner was a mark of
social distinction, proof of membership in the inner group of
the elite within Ward MacAllister's "400." At these
dinners Tesla presided as a most meticulous host, or more accurately,
as an old-world absolute monarch, for he would sample all food
brought to the dining room; and rarely did an event pass without
the grandiose host sending back some sauce or wine of unquestioned
excellence as unworthy of his guests.
Following each of these meals Tesla would escort his guests
to his laboratory below Washington Square; and here his demonstrations
were even more spectacular than his dinners. He had a flair for
the dramatic; and the strange-looking devices with which his
laboratory was furnished provided a grotesque and bizarre background
for the fantastic displays of seemingly unearthly forces that
with invisible fingers set objects whirling, caused globes and
tubes of various shapes to glow resplendently in unfamiliar colors
as if a section of a distant sun were suddenly transplanted into
the darkened room, and crackling of fire and hissing sheets of
flame to issue from monster coils to the accompaniment of sulfurous
fumes of ozone produced by the electrical discharges that suggested
this magician's chamber was connected directly with the seething
vaults of hell. Nor was this illusion dispelled when Tesla would
permit hundreds of thousands of volts of electricity to pass
through his body and light a lamp or melt a wire which he held.
The amazing feat of harmlessly passing through his body currents
of tremendously high voltage and high frequency was one which
Tesla evolved by his mental experiments long before he had an
opportunity to test them in his laboratory. The low-frequency
alternating currents, such as are now used on home-lighting circuits,
would, he knew from unpleasant experiences, produce a painful
shock if passed through the body. When light waves impinged on
the body, however, no such painful sensation was produced. The
only difference between the electric currents and light waves,
he reasoned, was a matter of frequency, the electric currents
oscillating at the rate of 60 per second and the light waves
at billions per second.
Somewhere between these two extremes the shock-producing property
of electromagnetic vibrations must disappear; and he surmised
the point would be near the lower end of the gap. Damage done
to the body by electric shock he divided into two factors, one--the
destruction of tissues by the heating effect which increased
or diminished as the amperage of the current was raised or lowered;
and two--the sensation of acute pain which varied with the number
of alternations of the current, each alternation producing a
single stimulus which was transmitted by the nerves as a pain.
Nerves, he knew, could respond to stimuli up to a rate of
about 700 per second, but were unable to transmit impulses received
at a more rapid rate. In this respect they acted very much like
the ear, which is unable to hear air vibrations above a frequency
of about 15,000 per second, and the eye, which is blind to color
vibrations of a frequency higher than that in violet light.
When he constructed his high-frequency alternating-current
dynamos, he had frequencies up to 20,000 per second with which
to test his theory; and by finger tests across the terminals
he was able to demonstrate that the nerves were unable to perceive
the individual vibrations at this rapid rate. The amperage, which
carried the tissue-destroying power, was still too high in the
output of these machines to pass safely through his body, even
though the sensation of pain was lacking.
By passing these currents through his newly invented air-core
transformers, he could increase their voltage ten-thousand fold
and reduce the amperage proportionately. The current density
would thereby be reduced below the point at which it would injure
tissues. He would then have a current which would not produce
sensation and would not harm the tissues. He cautiously tested
the theory by passing the currents through two fingers, then
his arm, next from hand to hand through his body and finally
from his head to his feet. If a spark jumped to or from his body,
there was a pin-prick sensation at the point of contact, but
this could be eliminated by holding a piece of metal to and from
which the spark could jump while the current passed through the
tissues without producing any sensation.
The energy content of these currents, which is proportionate
to the current multiplied by the voltage, could be very high
and produce spectacular effects such as melting metal rods, exploding
lead disks, and lighting incandescent or vacuum-tube lamps after
passing painlessly through his body.
The European scientific societies were persistent in their
efforts to induce Tesla to accept their invitations to lecture
before them, and finally he acceded. He set extravagantly high
standards for the contents of his lectures, and their preparation
entailed a tremendous amount of labor. All of the material had
to be entirely new. He would never repeat an experiment previously
presented. Every technical statement had to be tested at least
twenty times to insure complete accuracy. His lectures would
last two or three hours; and every minute of the time was crowded
with new and awe-inspiring demonstrations of his constant stream
of discoveries. He used a great array of devices fashioned by
himself and built in his own laboratories to illustrate his talks.
A Tesla lecture, therefore, was an extremely important event
in the scientific world and a most impressive occasion to those
who were fortunate enough to be able to attend.
Tesla arranged to give a lecture before the Institution of
Electrical Engineers in London on February 3, 1892, and one before
the International Society of Engineers in Paris on February nineteenth.
His decision to give the European lectures was influenced to
some extent by the fact that they would afford him an opportunity
to visit his home in Gospic, for recent letters had indicated
that his mother's health was failing.
The lecture before the Institution of Electrical Engineers
was a great success. English engineering journals, as will be
seen, had been niggardly in extending recognition to Tesla for
priority in the discovery of the rotating magnetic field, and
had belittled the practical value of his polyphase alternating-current
system, but in this attitude they were not representative of
the great body of engineers, who were most generous in their
praise and enthusiasm; and the attitude of the engineers was
shared by the English scientists.
When Tesla arrived in London he was entertained at many places
by famous men. At the Royal Institution, where the immortal Michael
Faraday had carried on his fundamental researches in magnetism
and electricity, Sir James Dewar, and a committee of equally
famous scientists, sought to prevail upon Tesla to repeat his
lecture before that organization. Tesla could be plain stubborn
in sticking to his plans, and in this case was exhibiting his
usual firmness. The famous Scottish scientist matched Tesla's
stubbornness with an equal persuasive persistence. He escorted
Tesla to Faraday's chair, an almost sacred relic to English science,
seated him in this throne, and then brought out an almost equally
precious heirloom, a portion of a bottle of whiskey, the remainder
of Faraday's personal supply, untouched for nearly a quarter
of a century. Out of this he poured a generous half glass for
Tesla. Sir James won. Tesla relented and gave the lecture the
following evening.
Lord Rayleigh, the eminent English physicist, was chairman
of the meeting at the Royal Institution, which was attended by
the elite of the scientific world and a generous representation
of the nobility of the realm. Rayleigh, after witnessing the
performance of Tesla's experiments, which were none the less
awe inspiring to scientists than to laymen, showered words of
praise on the inventor.
Rayleigh declared that Tesla possessed a great gift for the
discovery of fundamental scientific principles, and urged that
he concentrate his efforts on some one big idea.
Tesla, in his conversation after the meeting, disclaimed ability
as a great discoverer; but in this he was merely being modest,
for he knew that he was unique among men in his ability to discover
fundamental truths. He did, however, give very serious consideration
to Rayleigh's suggestion that he concentrate on some one big
idea. It is doubtful, however, whether Rayleigh's suggestion
was good advice. Tesla's mind had a range that was cosmic in
magnitude and adjusted to broad slashing advances through unknown
regions. Rayleigh's advice was like suggesting to an explorer
who had unique ability for penetrating an unknown continent and
opening it to civilization that he settle down and cultivate
a homestead, since that would give more definite and specific
returns for efforts expended.
Two weeks later Tesla gave his scheduled lecture before the
Physical Society in Paris and repeated it before the International
Society of Electrical Engineers. This was his second visit to
Paris since he had quit his job with the Continental Edison Company
in that city eight years before. Immediately after leaving the
Westinghouse Company in the autumn of 1889--at which time, too,
he completed his U.S. citizenship requirements--he had made a
brief visit to Paris to attend the International Exposition.
In the meantime, the fame of his polyphase system had spread
to Europe; and to this was added the glory for his spectacular
work with the new high-frequency currents. He was given a hero's
reception in Paris, as well as in London.
It would be interesting to know what thoughts passed through
the minds of the executives of the Continental Edison Company
as they observed the tremendous contributions to science and
industry by the engineer whose services they had lost through
their penny-wise tactics when they were offered in 1883, and
could undoubtedly have purchased for a relatively small amount,
the polyphase system for which Westinghouse paid Tesla $1,000,000
five years later.
A tesla lecture was an avalanche of new and fascinating electrical
knowledge. He completely overwhelmed his listeners with a wealth
of spectacular original experiments, and as a result almost every
individual contribution lost its identity in the dazzling concentration
of the whole galaxy of startling developments.
In the 1892 lectures, entitled "Experiments with Alternating
Currents of High Potential and High Frequency," Tesla described
many of his discoveries which are only coming into general use
today and are being hailed as modern inventions. Among these
are the "neon" and other gas-filled lamps, and phosphorescent
lamps. Many of the discoveries described are still unutilized,
including, as will be seen, the carbon or metallic-button incandescent
lamp, requiring but a single wire connection; and still others,
which he later discovered, were rich producers of the mysterious
X-rays.
The transcript of these lectures runs to 40,000 words. Scores
of pieces of apparatus were used and usually several experiments
were performed with each. He described "wireless" lamps,
glowing glass tubes that required no wire connection for their
operation. He described motors which operated on one wire, and
"wireless" or "no wire" motors. But perhaps
the most important development he described was the sensitive
electronic tube--the original of all our modern radio and other
electronic tubes--which, he predicted, was the device that would
permit receiving wireless telegraph messages across the Atlantic.
Of all these discoveries we shall presently have more to say
in detail.
It had been Tesla's intention to make a short visit to his
early home in Gospic when his lectures were out of the way, but
circumstances forced him to make the trip sooner than he expected.
Returning to his hotel after delivering the second Paris lecture,
he received word that his mother was gravely ill. He rushed to
the railroad station, arriving in time to board a train just
about to pull out. He telegraphed ahead for special transportation
facilities to shorten his trip, and succeeded in reaching Gospic
in time to see his mother alive. He arrived in the afternoon
and she died that night.
The great anxiety from which Tesla suffered during his sleepless
rush from Paris to Gospic caused a patch of hair on the right
side of his head to turn white over night. Within a month its
jet black color was restored naturally.
Almost immediately after his mother's death, Tesla contracted
an illness which incapacitated him for many weeks. When he recovered,
he visited his sister Marica, in Plaski, for two weeks. From
there he went to Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, where he arrived
in May and was received as a national hero.
During the weeks of enforced physical inactivity imposed on
him by his illness, Tesla took stock of himself and became thoroughly
dissatisfied with the manner in which he had been conducting
his life. No human being could feel anything but a pleasurable
reaction in response to the adulation that had been heaped upon
him during the past two years. Tesla, however, prided himself
upon his wisdom in having so designed his life that he would
not become a victim of human frailties, but would function far
above the normal human level of physical limitations and intellectual
activities. Now Tesla saw, in retrospect, that insofar as he
had adhered to his superman plan of life, he had succeeded in
achieving his goal of producing the works of a superman at a
rate which astounded the world. When, however, he submitted to
the first blandishments of the lion hunters after his New York
lecture in May, 1891, he observed, social activities had cut
into his available time and had interfered with his creative
activities. He had let the "man magnificent" supersede
his "superman," and two years of valuable time had
been largely lost. In addition, he had spent that totally unproductive
year at the Westinghouse plant. At the close of that period,
he had vowed he would never again work for anyone. He now vowed
that he would put an end to the vacuous social activities into
which he had been inveigled.
It was not easy for Tesla to live up to his good resolutions,
for his European trip had greatly enhanced his fame and triumphant
celebrations were scheduled on his reappearance in New York.
Nevertheless, he rejected all invitations. He returned to the
Hotel Gerlach, where he lived a solitary existence. With a pent-up
reserve of physical energy owing to his long abstinence from
his heavy daily routine of work, he plunged with great vigor
into his new program which was to open up new and enchanting
realms of scientific wonders.
THE first public application of Tesla's polyphase alternating-current
system was made at the Chicago World's Fair, the Columbian Exposition,
which opened in 1893 to celebrate the four-hundredth anniversary
of the discovery of America. This was the first world's fair
for which electric lighting was a possibility, and the architects
availed themselves of the opportunities it afforded for obtaining
spectacular effects in illuminating the grounds and buildings
at night, as well as for interior lighting during the day. The
Westinghouse Electric Company secured the contract for installing
all power and lighting equipment at the Fair, and took full advantage
of this opportunity to use the Tesla system and demonstrate its
great versatility. It supplied all the current used for lighting
and power.
while the Chicago World's Fair was in reality a monument to
Tesla, he had, in addition, a personal exhibition in which he
demonstrated his most recent inventions. One of his exhibits
was a spinning egg, made of metal. The egg was shown lying on
top of a small velvet-covered circular platform. When Tesla closed
a switch the egg stood on its small end and rotated at a high
speed as if by magic. The "magic" phase of this feat
appealed to a public which, however, grasped little of the explanation
that it illustrated the principle of the rotating magnetic field
produced by the polyphase alternating currents. In other of his
exhibits, glass tubes suspended in space or held in his hands
lighted up in an equally "magical" fashion.
But his most spectacular feat was to let 1,000,000 volts pass
through his body. This was alternating current of very high frequency
as well as high voltage. He had discovered means of producing
such currents. Eight years had passed since Edison, attacking
high-voltage alternating current as deadly, had refused to become
interested in Tesla's polyphase system. Now the Tesla system
was providing the electricity for the great world's fair and
the Edison direct-current system was ignored. The final gesture
of victory was for Tesla to answer Edison's charge that alternating
current was deadly by passing the highest voltage of it ever
produced through his own body for many minutes without the slightest
sign of harm. This bit of showmanship endeared Tesla to the public
and brought him a tremendous burst of world-wide fame. Unfortunately,
however, it obscured his more important work with polyphase currents.
The next great achievement to be attained by his polyphase
system was the harnessing of Niagara Falls. (Before this was
done, and even before the opening of the Chicago fair, the practicability
of his system was demonstrated in Europe; but this had been undertaken
without his knowledge. A practical test of the transmission of
polyphase alternating current at 30,000 volts was made between
a hydroelectric station at Lauffen and the City of Frankfurt,
the current being used to furnish electricity at a fair held
at the latter city. This installation was built in 1891. The
current was used to light incandescent and arc lamps and also
to operate a Tesla motor.) In 1886 a charter had been granted
for developing power at the Falls. The project made slow progress
and was taken over by a New York group which organized the Cataract
Construction Company, of which Edward Dean Adams was made president.
Mr. Adams' company desired to develop power on the largest scale
possible. The total energy supply available in the Falls had
been variously estimated from 4,000,000 to 9,000,000 horsepower.
Mr. Adams organized the International Niagara Commission for
the purpose of ascertaining the best means of harnessing the
Falls, and made Lord Kelvin, the famous English scientist, its
chairman. A prize of $3,000 was offered for the most practical
plan submitted.
Tesla had predicted nearly thirty years before, as a boy,
that he would someday harness Niagara Falls. Here was the opportunity.
In the meantime, he had made it possible to fulfil his boyhood
boast by completing the series of inventions which made it possible
to change the hydraulic power of the Falls into electrical energy.
The prize-offer plan adopted by Mr. Adams did not, however,
set well with Mr. Westinghouse when he was urged to submit a
proposal. He replied, "These people are trying to get one
hundred thousand dollars' worth of information for three thousand
dollars. When they are ready to talk business we will submit
our plans." This adamant attitude of Westinghouse was one
handicap for the Tesla alternating-current plan. The second big
handicap was the fact that Lord Kelvin had declared himself in
favor of the use of direct current.
About twenty plans were submitted in the contest but none
of them was accepted by the commission, and no prize was awarded.
The big electrical companies, Westinghouse, Edison General Electric
and Thomson-Houston, did not submit plans. This took place in
1890.
Original developers of the Falls planned to use locally the
mechanical power provided by water wheels; but the only practical
plan was, clearly, the generation of electricity by dynamos driven
by water wheels, and the distribution of the current throughout
the district. There was a good additional market for it at Buffalo,
a large industrial city about twenty-two miles distant. There
was always the hope, too, that the current could be transmitted
to New York City and serve the rich intervening territory. If
direct current were used, its transmission twenty-two miles to
Buffalo was totally unfeasible. The Tesla alternating-current
system, however, made the transmission to Buffalo extremely practicable
and the delivery of the current to New York City a possibility.
In due time the Cataract Construction Company decided that
the hydroelectric system was the only feasible one, and proposals
and bids were asked on a power system consisting of three generating
units, each of 5,000 horsepower, from the Westinghouse Electric
Company and the General Electric Company. Each one submitted
a proposal to install a Tesla polyphase generating system. The
General Electric Company, successor to the Edison General Electric
Company, having in the meantime secured a license to use the
Tesla patents, proposed to install a three-phase system, and
Westinghouse a two-phase system. The first proposal concerned
the building of the powerhouse. A second proposal on which bids
were asked concerned the transmission line between Niagara Falls
and Buffalo and a distribution system in the latter city.
Bids were asked for early in 1893, and in October of that
year Mr. Adams announced that the Westinghouse plan for the powerhouse
and the General Electric plan for the transmission line were
accepted. The latter included a transformation of the two-phase
current from the generators into three-phase current to be transmitted
to Buffalo. This change indicated the flexibility of the Tesla
polyphase system.
Westinghouse completed the powerhouse and in 1895 it stood
ready to deliver 15,000 horsepower; the most gigantic piece of
electrical engineering conceived or accomplished up to that time.
In 1896 General Electric completed the transmission and distribution
system, and electrical power extracted from Niagara Falls, without
in any way impairing the beauty of the spectacle they presented,
was delivered to industries through the Falls and Buffalo areas.
So successful was this installation that the Westinghouse Company
installed seven additional generating units, bringing the output
to 50,000 horsepower. A second equivalent powerhouse, also using
alternating current, was later built by the General Electric
Company. Today, the powerhouses at Niagara Falls are linked directly
with the electric power system in New York City, all using the
Tesla system.
Dr. Charles F. Scott, Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering
at wale University, and former president of the American Institute
of Electrical Engineers, who was a Westinghouse engineer when
that company was developing the Tesla system, in a memorial review
of Tesla's accomplishments, (Published in Electrical Engineering,
August 1943, pp. 351-555.) describes the Niagara development
and its results:
The simultaneous development of the Niagara project and the
Tesla system was a fortuitous coincidence. No adequate method
of handling large power was available in 1890; but while the
hydraulic tunnel was under construction, the development of polyphase
apparatus justified the oficial decision of May 6, 1893, five
years and five days after the issuing of Tesla's patents, to
use his system. The Polyphase method brought success to the Niagara
project; and reciprocally Niagara brought immediate prestige
to the new electric system.
Power was delivered in August 1895 to the first customer,
the Pittsburgh Reduction Company (now Aluminum Company of America)
for producing aluminum by the Hall process, patented in the eventful
year 1886. . . .
In 1896 transmission from Niagara Falls to Buffalo, 22 miles,
was inaugurated. Compare this gigantic and universal system capable
of uniting many power sources in a superpower system, with the
multiplicity of Lilliputian "systems" which previously
supplied electrical service. As Mr. Adams aptly explained: "Formerly
the various kinds of current required by different kinds of lamps
and motors were generated locally; by the Niagara-Tesla system
only one kind of current is generated, to be transmitted to places
of use and then changed to the desired form."
The Niagara demonstration of current for all purposes from
large generators led immediately to similar power systems in
New York City--for the elevated and street railways and for the
subway; for steam railway electrification; and for the Edison
systems, either by operating substations for converting alternating
current to direct current or by changing completely to A.C. service.
The culminating year 1896 inaugurated two far reaching developments
for the extension of polyphase power, one commercial and one
engineering. By exchange of patent rights, the General Electric
Company obtained license rights under Tesla patents, later made
impregnable by nearly a score of court decisions. Also the Parsons
turbine, accompanied by its foremost engineer, was transplanted
to America and enabled George Westinghouse to bring to fruition
by a new method the ideal of his first patent, a "rotary
steam engine." The acme of the reciprocating engine came
in the early 1900's; a century's development produced the great
engines that drove 5,000 to 7,500 kilowatt alternators for New
York's elevated and subway. But the rapidly growing steam turbine
of different types soon doomed the engine to obsolescence; single
units with the capacity of a score of the largest engines are
now supplying power to the metropolis. Single powerhouses now
supply more power than all of the thousands of central stations
and isolated plants of 1890.
Prof. Scott concludes: "The evolution of electric power
from the discovery of Faraday in 1831 to the initial great installation
of the Tesla polyphase system in 1896 is undoubtedly the most
tremendous event in all engineering history."
Lord Kelvin, who had originally favored direct current for
Niagara, later conceded, but only after the system was in operation,
that alternating current had many more advantages for long-distance
distribution systems, and declared, "Tesla has contributed
more to electrical science than any man up to his time."
There should never have been the slightest shadow of doubt
concerning the credit due to Tesla not only for discovering the
rotating magnetic field but also for inventing the first practical
alternating-current motor, the polyphase system of alternating
currents, dynamos for generating them, a variety of motors for
converting the currents into power, a system of polyphase transformers
for raising and lowering voltages, and economical methods for
transmitting electrical power for long distances. Nevertheless,
credit for priority has unjustly been given to and taken by others.
Tesla succeeded in establishing his claims; but in the meantime,
however, damage was done by raising these unfair claims, and
to this day the electrical engineering profession, and public
service and major electrical industries, have never extended
to Tesla the credit to which he is entitled. If they had done
so, the name of Tesla would carry at least as much fame as the
names Edison and Westinghouse.
Tesla, as we have seen, made his rotating magnetic field invention
in 1882, and within two months evolved the complete power system,
including all the apparatus which he later patented. In 1883
he described his invention to oficials of the Continental Edison
Company. In 1884 he demonstrated his motor to the mayor of Strassburg
and others. In this same year he described the invention to Thomas
A. Edison. In 1885 he sought to have the promoters of the Tesla
Arc Light Company develop his system. In 1887 he secured financial
backing and built a series of the dynamos and motors which were
tested by Prof. Anthony of Cornell University. On October 12,
1887, the first patent applications covering his basic inventions
were revealed to the Patent Ofice. The patents were granted on
various dates in the early months of 1888. On May 16, 1888, he
presented a demonstration and description of his basic inventions
before the American Institute of Electrical Engineers in New
York. So much for the record.
The first complication arose when Prof. Galileo Ferraris,
a physicist in the University of Turin, presented a paper on
"Rotazioni elettrodynamiche" (Electrodynamic Rotation)
before the Turin Academy in March, 1888. This was six years after
Tesla made his discovery, five years after he demonstrated his
motor and six months after he had applied for patents on his
system. Prof. Ferraris had been carrying on researches in the
field of optics. The problem that particularly interested him
was polarized light. In this period it was considered necessary
to build mechanical models to demonstrate all scientific principles.
It was not very dificult to devise models to demonstrate the
nature of plane-polarized light, but circularly polarized light
presented a more dificult problem.
Prof. Ferraris gave some thought to this problem in 1885,
but made no progress until 1888 when he turned to alternating
currents for a solution. In that period light was erroneously
thought of as a continuously undulating wave in the ether. Prof.
Ferraris took the continuously alternating current as an analogue
of the plane-polarized light wave. For a mechanical analogue
of the circularly polarized light wave he visualized a second
train of waves 90 degrees out of step with the first, giving
a right-angle vector to the component that should manifest itself
by rotation. This paralleled the solution at which Tesla had
arrived six years earlier.
In arranging a laboratory demonstration Prof. Ferraris used
a copper cylinder suspended on a thread to represent the light
waves, and caused two magnetic fields to operate on it at right
angles to each other. When the currents were turned on, the cylinder
rotated, wound up the thread on which it was suspended and raised
itself. This was an excellent model of rotary polarized light
waves. The model bore no resemblance to a motor, nor did the
Turin scientist have any intention that it should be so considered.
It was a laboratory demonstration in optics, using an electrical
analogy.
Prof. Ferraris' next experiment mounted the copper cylinder
on a shaft and divided each of his two coils into two parts,
placing one on either side of the copper cylinder. The device
worked up to a speed of 900 revolutions per minute--and beyond
this point lost power so rapidly it ceased to operate entirely.
He tried iron cylinders but they did not work nearly so well
as the copper ones. Prof. Ferraris predicted no future for the
device as a power source, but he did predict it would find usefulness
as the operating principle for a meter for measuring current.
Prof. Ferraris thus demonstrated that he failed by a wide
margin to grasp the principle which Tesla developed. The Italian
scientist found that the use of the magnetic iron cylinder interfered
with the operations of his device, whereas Tesla, following the
correct theory, utilized iron cores for the magnetic field of
his motor, used an iron armature, and obtained an efficiency
of about 95 per cent in his first motor, which had a rating of
about a quarter horsepower. The efficiency of Ferraris' device
was less than 25 per cent.
It was Prof. Ferraris' belief that he had performed an important
service to science by demonstrating that the rotating magnetic
field could not be used on any practical basis for producing
mechanical power from alternating current. He never deviated
from this conclusion, nor did he ever claim that he had anticipated
Tesla's discovery of a practical means for utilizing the rotating
field for producing power. Knowing that his process was entirely
different from Tesla's, he never advanced a claim to independent
discovery of the alternating-current motor. He even conceded
that Tesla had arrived at his discovery of the rotating magnetic
field entirely independently of him, and that Tesla could not
in any way have known of his work before publication.
A description of Prof. Ferraris' experiments, however, was
published in The Electrician, in London, May 25, 1888 (page 86).
This was accompanied by the statement:
Whether the apparatus devised by Prof. Ferraris will lead
to the discovery of an alternating current motor is a question
we do not pretend to prophesy, but as the principle involved
may also have other applications, notably in the construction
of meters for measuring the supply of electricity . . .
A year before this time Prof. Anthony had already tested Tesla's
alternating-current motors in the United States and reported
that they attained an order of efficiency equal to that of direct-current
motors; and Tesla's U.S. patents had been publicly announced
several months previously.
It was obvious that the editors of this London publication
were not keeping up to date on developments in the United States.
Tesla responded quickly, informing the editors of their oversight
and submitting an article describing his motors and the results
obtained with them.
No great enthusiasm was exhibited by the editors of The Electrician.
They receded to only the least possible extent from their stand
in favor of Ferraris by publishing an editorial note:
Our issue of the 25th of May contained an abstract of a paper
by Prof. Galileo Ferraris describing a method of producing a
revolving resultant magnetic field by means of a pair of coils
with the axes at right angles and traversed by alternating currents,
and we drew attention to the possibility that the principle of
the apparatus might be applied to the construction of an alternating
current motor. The paper by Mr. Nikola Tesla, which appears in
our columns this week, contains a description of such a motor,
founded on exactly the same principle. (VoI. XX, p. 165, June
15, 1888.)
No attention was drawn to the fact that Ferraris had reached
the conclusion that the principle could never be used for making
a practical motor, whereas Tesla had produced such a motor.
This attitude toward the American development did not disappear
from the London engineering journals. Later the Electrical Review
( London: Vol. XXVIII, p. 291, March 6, 1891) published an editorial
which opened with the statement:
For several years past, from the days of Prof. Ferraris' investigations,
which were followed by those of Tesla and Zipernowski and a host
of imitators, we have periodically heard of the question of alternating
current motors being solved.
At this time the Westinghouse Company was already commercially
exploiting the successful and practical Tesla polyphase system
in the United States. Not one word of credit to Tesla appeared
in the London engineering press.
A letter of protest dated March 17, 1891, was forwarded by
Tesla, and this was published some weeks later (p. 446) by the
Review. He said in part:
In all civilized countries patents have been obtained almost
without a single reference to anything which would have in the
least degree rendered questionable the novelty of the invention.
The first published essay--an account of some laboratory experiments
by Prof. Ferraris--was published in Italy six or seven months
after the date of filing my application for the foundation patents.
. . . yet in your issue of March 6, I read: "For several
years past, from the days of Prof. Ferraris' investigations,
which were followed by those of Tesla and Zipernowski and a host
of imitators, we have periodically heard of the question of alternating
current motors being solved.
No one can say that I have not been free in acknowledging
the merit of Prof. Ferraris, and I hope that my statement of
facts will not be misinterpreted. Even if Prof. Ferraris' essay
would have anticipated the date of filing of my application,
yet, in the opinion of all fair minded men, I would have been
entitled to the credit of having been the first to produce a
practical motor; for Prof. Ferraris denies in his essay the value
of the invention for the transmission of power. . . .
Thus in the most essential features of the system--the generators
with two or three currents of differing phase, the three wire
system, the closed coil armature, the motors with direct current
in the field, etc.,--I would stand alone, even had Prof. Ferraris'
essay been published many years ago. . . .
Most of these facts, if not all, are perfectly well known
in England; yet according to some papers, one of the leading
English electricians does not hesitate to say that I have worked
in the direction indicated by Prof. Ferraris, and in your issue
above referred to it seems I am called an imitator.
Now, I ask you where is that well known English fairness.
I am a pioneer and I am called an imitator. I am not an imitator.
I produce original work or none at all.
This letter was published; but the Electrical Review neither
expressed regret for the misstatement nor extended recognition
to Tesla.
Charles Proteus Steinmetz, later to achieve fame as the electrical
wizard of the General Electric Company, came to the support of
Tesla. In a paper presented before the American Institute of
Electrical Engineers, he said: "Ferraris built only a little
toy, and his magnetic circuits, so far as I know, were completed
in air, not in iron, though that hardly makes any difference."(Transactions,
A.I.E.E., VoI. VIII, p. 591, 1891.)
Other American engineers likewise rallied to Tesla's support.
An industrial exposition, as already mentioned, was held at
Frankfurt, Germany, in 1891. The United States Navy sent Carl
Hering, an electrical engineer who had done much writing for
technical journals, as observer to report on any developments
that would be of interest to the Navy. Hering, unfortunately,
had not informed himself of the inventions embodied in the Tesla
patents before going abroad.
The outstanding new development at the Frankfurt exposition
was the first public application of Tesla's system. The grounds
and building were lighted by electricity brought to the city
by a long-distance transmission line over which electricity was
carried from the hydroelectric station at Lauffen by three-phase
alternating current carried at 30,000 volts. There was exhibited
a two-horsepower motor operated by the three-phase current.
Hering recognized the significance of the new development,
and sent back enthusiastic reports describing it as of German
origin. In his article in the Electrical World (N.Y.), he waxed
enthusiastic about the work of Dolivo Dobrowolsky in designing
the three-phase motor and its associated system, hailing it as
an outstanding scientific discovery and of tremendous commercial
importance. The impression was given that all other inventors
had missed the main point, and that Dobrowolsky had achieved
the grand broad accomplishment that would set the pace for future
power developments. Nor was Hering the only one to whom this
impression was communicated.
Ludwig Gutman, an American electrical engineer, a delegate
to the Frankfurt Electrical Congress, in a paper on "The
Inventor of the Rotary field System," delivered before that
body, slammed back at Dobrowolsky. He stated:
As we have enjoyed in America several years' experience with
this system represented by the Tesla motors I must oppose the
assertion lately made by Herr von Dobrowolsky at a meeting of
the Electrotechnische Zesellschaft held here in Frankfurt. The
gentleman said: "I believe I am able to assert that the
motor problem for large and small works has been by this completely
solved." This assertion goes most likely too far. The problem
was already solved, theoretically and electrically, in 1889.
(Electrical World, N.Y.: Oct. 17, 1891)
Dobrowolsky, in a paper published in the Electrotechnische
Zeitschrift (p. 149-150; 1891), reduced his claim to that of
having produced the first practical alternating-current motor;
and he asserted that in the Tesla two-phase motor there were
field pulsations amounting to 40 per cent, while in his three-phase
motor, in operation at the Frankfurt exposition, these were greatly
reduced.
Even this reduced claim of Dobrowolsky's was quickly smashed.
It drew fire from an American and an English source, and also
from the chief engineer of the project of which his motor was
a part.
Dr. Michael I. Pupin, of the Department of Engineering, Columbia
University, analyzing Dobrowolsky's claim, (Ibid., Dec. 26, 1891)
demonstrated that he had failed to comprehend the basic principles
of the Tesla system, and that the three-phase system which he
claimed as his own was included in Tesla's inventions.
C. E. L. Brown, the engineer in charge of the pioneering Lauffen-Frankfurt
30,000-volt transmission system and its three-phase generating
system, including the Dobrowolsky motor, settled definitely and
completely the question of credit for the whole system. In a
letter published in the Electrical World (Nov. 7, 1891), he concluded
with the statement: "The three phase current as applied
at Frankfurt is due to the labors of Mr. Tesla and will be found
clearly specified in his patents."
Mr. Brown wrote letters to other technical publications to
this same effect, and in them criticized Mr. Hering for failing
to give Tesla his due credit, and for diverting it to Dobrowolsky.
These criticisms finally brought a response from Mr. Hering.
This appeared in the Electrical World, Feb. 6, 1892:
As Mr. C. E. L. Brown, in communications to the Electrical
World and other journals, seems determined to insist that I have
neglected the work of Mr. Tesla on rotary current I wish to state
there is no one more willing than myself to give Mr. Tesla due
credit for his work, and I have always considered him to be an
original inventor of the rotary field system and first to reduce
it to practice, and I believe I so stated in my articles. If
I have at any time failed to give him credit for the extent to
which he developed it, it has been because Mr. Tesla has been
too modest (or perhaps prudent) to let the world know what he
has accomplished. When the articles which have caused this discussion
were being written Mr. Tesla's patents were not accessible to
me. Just where Mr. Dobrowolsky's improvements begin I have not
been able to ascertain. . . .
Dobrowolsky, though he may have been an independent inventor,
admits Tesla's work is prior to his . . . The modesty of both
of these gentlemen would, I feel sure, lead to a clear understanding.
Regarding the subject of priority it may be of interest here
to say that in a conversation with Prof. Ferraris last summer
that gentleman told me with very becoming modesty that, although
he had experimented with the rotary field several years before
Tesla's work was published he did not think it was possible that
Tesla could have known of his work and he therefore believed
Tesla invented it entirely independently. He also stated that
Tesla developed it much further than he (Ferraris) did.
Thus the scientists and engineers in the United States, Germany
and Italy gave Tesla clear and unquestioned credit for being
the sole inventor of the magnificent polyphase electrical system
in all of its details. French and British journals then fell
in line.
Thus, by 1892, there was universal acclaim for Tesla as the
unquestioned inventor of the alternating-current motor and the
polyphase system in engineering circles. There was none, therefore,
to dispute his claim or to seek to rob him of credit when his
fame reached the public through the operation of his system at
the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893, and later when his system
made possible the harnessing of Niagara Falls.
In due time, however, there came many who claimed to have
made improvements on Tesla's inventions; and widespread efforts
were made to exploit these "improvements." The Westinghouse
Company, now owners of the Tesla patents, undertook to defend
the patents and to prosecute infringers. As a result about twenty
suits were carried to the courts, and, in every one of them,
decisions gave a decisive victory to Tesla.
A sample of the sweeping decisions that were handed down is
that of Judge Townsend in the United States Circuit Court of
Connecticut in September, 1900, when, passing judgment on the
first group of basic patents, he said in part:
It remained to the genius of Tesla to capture the unruly,
unrestrained and hitherto opposing elements in the field of nature
and art and to harness them to draw the machines of man. It was
he who first showed how to transform the toy of Arago into an
engine of power; the "laboratory experiment" of Bailey
into a practically successful motor; the indicator into a driver;
he first conceived the idea that the very impediments of reversal
in direction, the contra-indications of alternations might be
transformed into power-producing rotations, a whirling field
of force.
what others looked upon as only invincible barriers, impassable
currents and contradictory forces he seized, and by harmonizing
their directions utilized in practical motors in distant cities
the power of Niagara.
The resentments and antagonisms engendered by the unvarying
series of successful decisions caused individuals who were adversely
affected to vent their antagonisms on Tesla although he had not
in ten years held any personal interests in the patents.
The situation that developed is well described by B. A. Behrend,
later vice-president of the American Institute of Electrical
Engineers:
It is a peculiar trait of ignorant men to go always from one
extreme to another, and those who were once the blind admirers
of Mr. Tesla, exalting him to an extent which can be likened
only to the infatuated praise bestowed on victims of popular
admiration, are now eagerly engaged in his derision. There is
something deeply melancholy in the prospect, and I can never
think of Nikola Tesla without warming up to my subject and condemning
the injustice and ingratitude which he has received alike at
the hands of the public and of the engineering profession. (Western
Electrician, Sept., 1907)
With the scientific and engineering worlds, and the courts,
extending to him a clear title to the honor of being the great
pioneer discoverer and inventor of the principles and machines
that created the modern electrical system, Tesla stands without
a rival as the genius who gave the world the electrical power
age that made our mass-production industrial system possible.
The name Tesla should, therefore, in all right and justice, be
the most famous name in the engineering world today.
RETURNING to his laboratory in March, 1893, after his European
and American lectures, Tesla banished all social activities from
his life program, and, bursting with energy, pitched headlong
into experimental work in connection with his wireless system.
He made repeated experiments in working out the refinement of
his principle of tuning circuits to resonance with each other.
He built more than one hundred coils covering a wide range of
electrical tuning characteristics. He also built numerous oscillators
for producing high-frequency currents, and condensers and inductances
for tuning both sending and receiving coils to any desired frequency
or wavelength.
He demonstrated that he could cause any one of hundreds of
coils to respond selectively and powerfully to its particular
wavelength emitted by an oscillator while all others remained
inert; but he discovered that tuned electrical coils have, to
a further extent, the same properties as tuned musical string,
in that they vibrate not only to the fundamental note but also
to a wide range of upper, and particularly lower, harmonics.
This characteristic could be usefully employed in connection
with the design of sending- and receiving-station antennas, but
it militated against the sharp, exclusive response tuning of
coils. At close range, and with the powerful currents Tesla used
in his laboratory, the harmonics were a handicap--when greater
distance separated sending and receiving coils, this trouble
became a minor one.
It became obvious to Tesla that it was going to be dificult
to arrange an early demonstration of his worldwide system of
intelligence and of power, so he planned a compromise system
in which he would use a smaller central transmitter and smaller
relay stations at certain distances.
In an interview with Arthur Brisbane, the famous editor, Tesla
announced in The world of July 22, 1894, the certainty of his
plans. He said:
you would think me a dreamer and very far gone if I should
tell you what I really hope for. But I can tell you that I look
forward with absolute confidence to sending messages through
the earth without any wires. I have also great hopes of transmitting
electric force in the same way without waste. Concerning the
transmission of messages through the earth I have no hesitation
in predicting success. I must first ascertain exactly how many
vibrations to the second are caused by disturbing the mass of
electricity which the earth contains. My machine for transmitting
must vibrate as often to put itself in accord with the electricity
in the earth.
During the following winter he designed and built his transmitting
station and a receiving station for this purpose. It worked well
within the close range of the laboratory and between points in
the city. Like the artist who is never willing to declare a picture
finished but must continue to apply an unending series of slight
improvements, Tesla continued to add refinements so that he would
be assured of a perfect test in the spring, when he planned to
take his receiving set up the Hudson River on a small boat to
test its response at extended distances.
with Tesla, as with Caesar, though, came tragedy on the Ides
of March. For Tesla it was the unlucky 13th of March, 1895, when
fire broke out during the night in the lower part of the building
in which his laboratory was located and swept through the entire
structure. The two floors on which his equipment was located
dropped to the basement, their entire contents destroyed. Not
a single article was saved. The major portion of Tesla's fortune
was invested in the apparatus in that building. He carried no
insurance on it. The loss was total.
The monetary loss was the least important factor in the shock
which Tesla sustained. The apparatus and the countless experiments
in scores of subjects with which they were associated were part
of Tesla's self. His work of a lifetime was swept away. All of
his records, papers, mementos, his famous world's Fair exhibit
were gone. His laboratory, in which he had demonstrated his wonders
to the elite and intelligentsia of New York, to the most famous
men and women of the country and the world, was no more. And
this tragedy had come just when he was ready to make his first
distance demonstration of his wireless system.
Tesla was in a tough spot financially. The laboratory was
the property of the Tesla Electric Company, owned by Tesla and
A. K. Brown who had, with an associate, put up the funds to finance
Tesla's demonstration of his polyphase alternating-current system
prior to its sale to Westinghouse for $1,000,000. Some of that
money was divided as cash among the associates, as stated; and
the remainder had gone into the laboratory for further developments.
The resources of the company were now wiped out and Tesla's individual
resources were almost at the vanishing point. He was receiving
some patent royalties from Germany on his polyphase motors and
dynamos. This income would be adequate to take care of his living
expenses but not suficient to enable him to maintain an experimental
laboratory.
Mr. Adams, active head of the Morgan group that had developed
the hydroelectric station at Niagara Falls, using Tesla's polyphase
system, now came to the inventor's rescue. He proposed and arranged
for the formation of a new company which would finance the continuation
of Tesla's experiments, and he offered to subscribe one hundred
thousand dollars of the proposed half-million dollars of capital
stock of the company.
with this support Tesla proceeded to set up a new laboratory.
He secured quarters at 46 East Houston Street, and started operations
there in July, 1895, four months after his South Fifth Avenue
laboratory had been destroyed.
Adams paid forty thousand dollars as the first installment
of his subscription. He took an active personal interest in Tesla's
work, and spent a great deal of time in the laboratory. Knowing
from the successful operation of the Niagara Falls plant that
Tesla, technically, was extremely practical, Adams was deeply
impressed by the plans for wireless transmission of intelligence
and of power. He declared he was willing to go still further
than his original plan of financial support, and he proposed
that the plan include the taking in of his son as an active partner
in Tesla's work.
Such an arrangement would amount to an alliance for Tesla
with the powerful Morgan financial group. It was the support
of J. P. Morgan that gave financial guidance to the formation
of the General Electric Company and made possible the building
of the fiaterside Station, the first big Edison powerhouse in
New York, and it was a Morgan group that, by making possible
the development of Niagara, had given the Tesla system a tremendous
boost. The prestige that would come from a Morgan association
would probably be even more potent than the actual monetary aid
involved. with this alliance Tesla's financial future was assured.
There would come to his aid, through it, the support of the world's
greatest organizational genius and practical promotion powers.
The tragedy of the fire that brought about this situation could
yet prove a great blessing.
Tesla made his decision. what influenced him to reach the
determination that guided him, no one ever learned. He rejected
Mr. Adams' offer. From a practical point of view there is no
way of explaining his action. But no one could ever successfully
demonstrate that Tesla was practical in a commercial and financial
sense.
with the forty thousand dollars that Adams subscribed, Tesla
was able to keep actively engaged in research for about three
years. He probably could have secured subscriptions of many times
that amount if he had been willing to put forth even a slight
effort in that direction, but he was interested mainly in getting
his experiments well under way rather than worrying about future
financial needs. He had full faith that the future would bring
him many millions of dollars as a token of the many billions
of value he would give it through his inventions.
It took Tesla about a year to get his laboratory equipped
and to build an array of experimental apparatus. Almost nothing
that he used could be purchased in the market; everything had
to be specially made by his workmen under his direction. In the
spring of 1897 he was ready to make, on his wireless transmitter
and receiver, the distance tests which had been interrupted by
the fire two years before.
The success of these tests were announced by Tesla in an interview
with a representative of the Electrical Review which was published
in the issue of July 9, 1897, of that journal. It stated:
Nearly every telegraphic inventor has for years dreamed in
his waking hours of the possibility of communicating without
wires. From time to time there has appeared in the technical
journals a reference to the experiments showing the almost universal
belief among electricians that, some day, wires will be done
away with. Experiments have been made attempting to prove the
possibilities, but it has remained for Mr. Nikola Tesla to advance
a theory, and experimentally prove it, that wireless communication
is a possibility and by no means a distant possibility. Indeed,
after six years of careful and conscientious work, Mr. Tesla
has arrived at a stage where some insight into the future is
possible.
A representative of the Electrical Review receives the assurance
personally from Mr. Tesla who, by the way, is nothing if not
conservative, that electrical communication without wires is
an accomplished fact and that the method employed and the principles
involved have nothing in them to prevent messages being transmitted
and intelligibly received between distant points. Already he
has constructed both a transmitting apparatus and an electrical
receiver which at distant points is sensitive to the signals
of the transmitter, regardless of earth currents or points of
the compass. And this has been done with a surprisingly small
expenditure of energy.
Naturally, Mr. Tesla is averse to explaining all details of
his invention, but allows it to be understood that he avails
himself of what, for the present, may be termed the electrostatic
equilibrium; that if this be disturbed at any point on the earth
the disturbance can with proper apparatus be distinguished at
a distant point and thus the means of signalling and reading
signals becomes practicable once the concrete instruments are
available. Mr. Tesla announced his belief in the possibilities,
but he did so after having satisfied himself by actual test of
apparatus designed by him. Much work has yet to be done, and
he has since then given close attention and study to the problem.
Details are not yet available, for obvious reasons, and we
now merely chronicle Mr. Tesla's statement that he has really
accomplished wireless communication over reasonably long distances
with small expenditure of energy and has only to perfect apparatus
to go to any extent. Morse's 40 mile experiment in the old days
was on a far less certain basis than the wireless possibilities
of today.
Tesla's work with high frequency and high potential currents
has been notable. As long ago as 1891 he foretold the present
results, both as to vacuum tube lighting and intercommunication
without wires. The former has in his hands assumed a condition
capable of a public demonstration of the phenomena of the electrostatic
molecular forces. Numberless experiments were carried out, and
from what then was a startling frequency of 10,000 per second
Mr. Tesla has advanced to what now is a moderate rate at 2,000,000
oscillations per second
This announcement recorded the birth of modern radio--radio
as it is in use today--born on a boat traveling up the Hudson
River, carrying the receiving set twenty-five miles from the
Houston Street laboratory, a distance which was a small fraction
of the range of the set but enough to demonstrate its capabilities.
Such an accomplishment was worthy of a flamboyant smash announcement
instead of Tesla's very modest statement and the even more conservative
manner in which the Electrical Review treated the news. Tesla
had to protect not only his patent rights, which would be jeopardized
by premature disclosure, but also had to be on guard against
invention invaders and patent pirates, with whom he had previously
had unpleasant experiences. The Electrical Review, naturally
enough, was fearful of the consequences of "sticking its
neck out" by too enthusiastic a reception before full details
were available.
The fundamental patents on Tesla's system were issued on September
2, 1897, just two months after his announcement. They are numbered
645,576 and 649,621. In these patents he describes all the fundamental
features of the radio broadcasting and receiving circuits in
use today. Once patent protection was secured, Tesla did not
long delay in letting the public in on his discoveries. His presentation
took the form of a spectacular demonstration at Madison Square
Garden.
wireless transmission of intelligence is a modern satisfaction
of one of the oldest cravings of man, who has always sought the
annihilation of distance by communication through space without
material linkage over the intervening expanse. Early experimenters
with the telephone, particularly, were enthusiastic seekers of
a method of wireless electrical communication that would convey
the voice through space in the manner in which the air conducted
sound. David Edward Hughes had noted, in 1879, that when an electric
spark was produced anywhere in his house he heard a noise in
his telephone receiver. He traced the effect to the action of
the carbon granules in contact with a metal disk in his telephone
transmitter which acted as a detector of the space waves by sticking
together slightly, reducing the resistance of the mass, and producing
a click in the receiver.
Prof. A. E. Dolbear, of Tufts College, amplified this observation
and set up, in 1882, a demonstration set using the principle
but eliminating the telephone set. He used a spark coil for creating
waves and a mass of carbon granules for detecting them. This
is exactly the "wireless" system which Marconi "discovered"
fourteen years later.
Edison, engaged by the Western Union Telegraph Company to
break the monopoly which Bell held by his invention of the telephone,
had succeeded, in 1885, in sending a message from a moving train
by "wireless." A wire strung on the train paralleling
a telegraph wire strung on poles along the track made it possible
to bridge the intervening few feet by an inductive effect--the
same effect which causes annoyance by creating "cross talk,"
or a mixing of conversations over two telephone circuits located
close to each other. fi. M. Preece, in England, made a similar
experiment about the same time. The extremely short distances
over which such systems worked prevented them from having any
practical usefulness.
An entirely different type of wireless communication had been
developed by Alexander Graham Bell in 1880 and 1881. This was
given the name radiophone, but Bell insisted on calling it the
photophone. The photophone transmitted the voice over a beam
of light. The transmitter consisted of a very thin glass or mica
mirror, which could be vibrated by the voice. This reflected
a beam of light, usually sunlight, to a distant receiving device.
The simple receiver consisted of a chemist's test tube, into
which a selected material was placed. The top of the tube was
closed by a cork through which two small rubber tubes were inserted,
the other ends being placed in the ears. A very great variety
of materials could be placed in the test tube as detectors. when
the beam of light, vibrated by the voice, impinged on the material
in the tube, an absorption of heat took place which set the air
in the tube in vibration, thus reproducing the voice that was
carried by the light beam. Bell also used selenium as a detector.
It responded to the visible rays and produced an electrical effect.
The experiments, obviously, were of little practical value as
the basis for a system of wireless communication.
Michael Faraday, in London, had described in 1845 his theory
of the relationship between light and the electromagnetic lines
of force; and in 1862 James Clerk Maxwell published an analysis
of Faraday's work which gave a mathematical basis for the theory
that light waves were electromagnetic in nature, and that it
was possible for such waves to exist very much shorter and very
much longer than the known wavelength of visible light. This
was a challenge to scientists to prove the existence of such
waves.
Prof. Heinrich Hertz, at Bonn, Germany, from 1886 to 1888,
undertook the search for the waves longer than light or heat.
He produced them by the spark discharge of an induction coil
and recaptured them from space, at short distances, in the form
of a tiny spark that jumped the gap in a slotted ring of wire.
Sir Oliver Lodge, in England, was simultaneously seeking to measure
equally small electrical waves in wire circuits.
This, then, had been the situation in the scientific world
when Tesla began his work in 1889. The plan for wireless communication
which he presented in 1892 and 1893, as will be described in
a moment, shows how his magnificent concept and tremendously
advanced knowledge towered mountain high over all contemporaries.
when Tesla left the Westinghouse plant in the fall of 1889,
he had immediately turned to the next phase of his development
of the alternating-current Weld--a new system of distributing
energy by means of high-frequency alternating currents which
would be a far more magnificent discovery than his polyphase
system. within the next two years he had explored the principles
by which energy could be distributed broadcast without the use
of wires, and these he had demonstrated with powerful coils in
his laboratory. The distribution of intelligence, later called
"wireless," was but a single phase of the larger project.
Tesla described, in 1892, the first electronic tube designed
for use as a detector in a radio system, and demonstrated its
characteristics in his lectures in London and Paris in February
and March of that year. (The tube, however, had been developed
in 1890.) He described in February and March of the following
year, 1893, his system of radio broadcasting, presenting its
principles in detail, in lectures before the Franklin Institute
in Philadelphia and at the convention of the National Electric
Light Association held in St. Louis.
Tesla's electronic tube, his 1890 invention, was the ancestor
of the detecting and amplifying tubes in use today. His demonstration
of this tube is a matter of record in the archives of four societies
before which he exhibited it in February and March of 1892--the
Institute of Electrical Engineers and the Royal Society of London
and the Physical Society of France and the International Society
of Electrical Engineers in Paris. He stated in these lectures:
If there is any motion which is measurable going on in space,
such a brush ought to reveal it. It is, so to speak, a beam of
light, frictionless, devoid of inertia.
I think it may find practical applications in telegraphy.
with such a brush it would be possible to send dispatches across
the Atlantic, for instance, with any speed, since its sensitiveness
may be so great the slightest changes will affect it.
The "brush" in Tesla's tube was a beam of electrons.
The electron, however, had not yet been discovered. Nevertheless,
Tesla gave an accurate description of its nature, demonstrating
the remarkable accuracy of his interpretation of strange phenomena.
So sensitive was this electronic beam that a small horseshoe
magnet an inch wide at a distance of six feet caused movement
of the electron beam in either direction, depending on the position
in which the magnet was held.
If anyone approached the tube from a distance of many feet
the beam, or brush, would swing to the opposite side of the tube.
If one walked around the tube even at a distance of ten feet,
the beam would move likewise, keeping its center end always pointed
at the moving object. The slightest movement of a finger, or
even the tensing of muscle, would bring a swinging response from
the beam.
In the same 1892 lecture in which he described this first
electronic tube, Tesla demonstrated lamps which were lighted
without wire connections (wireless light) and also a motor which
operated without wire connections to the energizing coils (wireless
power); and he had again presented these developments at his
exhibition at the Chicago Columbian Exposition early in 1893.
It was with all this experience behind him, giving him full
assurance that his system was entirely practical and operative,
that Tesla presented at the Franklin Institute and at the convention
of the National Electric Light Association in February and March,
1893, a very cautious and conservative statement concerning his
plan. Even at these 1893 lectures, Tesla could have staged a
demonstration of wireless transmission of intelligence by placing
one of his resonant coils, surmounted by one of his electronic
"brush" tubes, or one of his low-pressure air lamps,
in the lecture hall and causing it to respond to signals sent
out by an energized coil of similar wavelength but located at
a considerable distance from the building. The experiment was
a standard procedure in his laboratory.
This, however, would be a purely local effect, whereas his
radio transmission system was one planned on a world-wide basis
requiring much more powerful apparatus than he had thus far built.
To pass off a purely local effect as a demonstration of a world-wide
system, even though the observed results would have been identical,
would have been a case of intellectual dishonesty to which Tesla
would not stoop; yet this demonstration of wireless would have
been more spectacular and powerful than any staged by any other
inventor in more than a half-dozen years following.
Describing his world-wide system at the 1893 National Electric
Light Association meeting, he said:
In connection with resonance effects and the problems of transmission
of energy over a single conductor, which was previously considered,
I would say a few words on a subject which constantly fills my
thoughts, and which concerns the welfare of all. I mean the transmission
of intelligible signals, or, perhaps, even power, to any distance
without the use of wires. I am becoming more convinced of the
practicability of the scheme; and though I know full well that
the great majority of scientific men will not believe that such
results can be practically and immediately realized, yet I think
that all consider the developments in recent years by a number
of workers to have been such as to encourage thought and experiment
in this direction. My conviction has grown so strong that I no
longer look upon the plan of energy or intelligence transmission
as a mere theoretical possibility, but as a serious problem in
electrical engineering, which must be carried out some day.
The idea of transmitting intelligence without wires is the
natural outcome of the most recent results of electrical investigations.
Some enthusiasts have expressed their belief that telephony to
any distance by induction through air is possible. I cannot stretch
my imagination so far, but I do firmly believe that it is practical
to disturb, by means of powerful machines, the electrostatic
conditions of the earth, and thus transmit intelligible signals,
and, perhaps, power. In fact, what is there against carrying
out such a scheme?
We now know that electrical vibrations may be transmitted
through a single conductor. why then not try to avail ourselves
of the earth for this purpose? We need not be frightened by the
idea of distance. To the weary wanderer counting the mileposts,
the earth may appear very large; but to the happiest of all men,
the astronomer, who gazes at the heavens, and by their standards
judges the magnitude of our globe, it appears very small. And
so I think it must seem to the electrician; for when he considers
the speed with which an electrical disturbance is propagated
through the earth, all his ideas of distance must completely
vanish.
A point of great importance would be first to know what is
the capacity of the earth, and what charge does it contain if
electrified. Though we have no positive evidence of a charged
body existing in space without other oppositely electrified bodies
being near, there is a fair probability that the earth is such
a body, for by whatever process it was separated--and this is
the accepted view of its origin--it must have retained a charge,
as occurs in all processes of mechanical separation. . . .
If we can ever ascertain at what period the earth's charge,
when disturbed, oscillates, with respect to an oppositely charged
system or known circuit, we shall know a fact possibly of the
greatest importance to the welfare of the human race. I propose
to seek for the period by means of an electrical oscillator or
a source of alternating currents.
One of the terminals of this source would be connected to
the earth, as, for instance, to the city water mains, the other
to an insulated body of large surface. It is possible that the
outer conducting air strata or free space contains an opposite
charge, and that, together with the earth, they form a condenser
of large capacity. In such case the period of vibration may be
very low and an alternating dynamo machine might serve for the
purpose of the experiment. I would then transform the current
to a potential as high as it would be found possible, and connect
the ends of the high tension secondary to the ground and to the
insulated body. By varying the frequency of the currents and
carefully observing the potential of the insulated body, and
watching for the disturbance at various neighboring points of
the earth's surface, resonance might be detected.
Should, as the majority of scientific men in all probability
believe, the period be extremely small, then a dynamo machine
would not do, and a proper electrical oscillator would have to
be produced, and perhaps it might not be possible to obtain such
rapid vibrations. But whether this be possible or not, and whether
the earth contains a charge or not, and whatever may be its period
of vibration, it is certainly possible--for of this we have daily
evidence--to produce some electrical disturbance suficiently
powerful to be perceptible by suitable instruments at any point
on the earth's surface. . . .
Theoretically, then, it could not require a great amount of
energy to produce a disturbance perceptible at a great distance,
or even all over the surface of the globe. Now, it is quite certain
that at any point within a certain radius of the sources, a properly
adjusted self induction and capacity device can be set in action
by resonance. But not only this can be done, but another source,
s 1, similar to s, or any number of such sources, can be set
to work in synchronism with the latter, and the vibration thus
intensified and spread over a large area, or a flow of electricity
produced to or from source s 1, if the same or of opposite phase
to the source s.
I think that, beyond doubt, it is possible to operate electrical
devices in a city, through the ground or pipe system, by resonance
from an electrical oscillator located at a central point. But
the practical solution of this problem would be of incomparably
smaller benefit to man than the realization of the scheme of
transmitting intelligence, or, perhaps, power, to any distance
through the earth or environing medium. If this is at all possible,
distance does not mean anything. Proper apparatus must first
be produced, by means of which the problem can be attacked, and
I have devoted much thought to this subject. I am firmly convinced
it can be done, and I hope we shall live to see it done.
The lecture before the Franklin Institute contained a similar
statement. An additional paragraph from it can be quoted:
If by means of powerful machinery, rapid variations of the
earth's potential were produced, a grounded wire reaching up
to some height would be traversed by a current which could be
increased by connecting the free end of the wire to a body of
some size. . . . The experiment, which would be of great scientific
interest, would probably best succeed on a ship at sea. In this
manner, even if it were not possible to operate machinery, intelligence
might be transmitted quite certainly.
Tesla thus presented in these lectures the principles which
he had learned in his laboratory experiments, during the previous
three years, were necessary for successful wireless communication.
Several fundamental requirements were presented which will
be understood by any non-technical person who has had even slight
experience with radio receiving sets: 1. An antenna, or &aerial
wire; 2. A ground connection; 3. An &aerial-ground circuit
containing inductance and capacity; 4. Adjustable inductance
and capacity (for tuning); 5. Sending and receiving sets tuned
to resonance with each other; and 6. Electronic tube detectors.
He had still earlier invented a loud speaker.
These embody the fundamental principles of radio, and are
used in every sending and receiving set today.
Radio as it exists today is, therefore, the product of the
genius of Nikola Tesla. He is the original inventor of the system
as a whole and of all the principal electrical components. The
man who, next to Tesla, is entitled to the greatest amount of
credit is Sir Oliver Lodge, the great English scientist. Even
Lodge, however, failed to grasp the fundamental picture that
Tesla presented.
Lodge, early in 1894, had put a Hertz spark gap in a copper
cylinder open at one end; and in this way he produced a beam
of ultra-short-wave oscillations which could be transmitted in
any direction. He did the same for the receiving set. Since the
incoming waves could be received from only one direction, this
receiving set was able to locate the direction from which the
transmitted waves came. with this set he completely anticipated
Marconi by two years. In the summer of that year, in a demonstration
before the British Association for the Advancement of Science
at Oxford, he sent Morse signals, with an improved set, between
two buildings separated by several hundred feet.
It is little wonder, then, that Marconi, who started his studies
of wireless in 1895, created no stir in the scientific circles
in England when he came from Italy to London in 1896 with a wireless
set that in every essential feature was the same as that demonstrated
by Lodge in 1894. He used a parabolic reflector, so his set was
little more than an electrical searchlight. He did, however,
bring an alternative feature to replace the parabolic beam reflector.
This was a ground connection and antenna, or &aerial wire,
for both sending and receiving set. This was exactly what Tesla
had described in his plan published three years before.
when Hertz made his experiments to demonstrate the identical
nature of light and longer electromagnetic waves, he intentionally
sought to use the shortest waves it was practicable to produce.
They were measured in inches--much less than a yard long. They
were entirely satisfactory for his experiment. when the wireless
experimenters copied his methods they took over the short-wave
plan without ever asking a question as to what wavelength should
be used for wireless communication; the thought seems not to
have dawned on them that there were other wavelengths that could
be produced and used--all except Tesla.
Tesla took the trouble, with the spirit of a real scientist
to repeat exactly the experiments of Hertz; and he published
his results, stating that he found a number of important differences
and calling attention to the inadequacies of Hertz's experimental
methods.
Having experimented with a wide gamut of wavelengths of high-frequency
currents and studied the properties of each section of the spectrum,
he knew that the short wavelengths were totally unsuitable for
communication purposes. He knew that the useful wavelengths ranged
from 100 meters to many thousands of meters. He knew that the
combination of induction coil and Hertz ball-type spark-gap oscillator
could never have any practical usefulness in producing the kind
of electrical pulsations required. Even with the highly efficient
apparatus available today, scientists have been unable to use
in communication (except for special purposes) the ultra-short
waves which Tesla in his wisdom condemned and Marconi, owing
to his inexperience, tried to use.
The history of the succeeding years in wireless is the story
of the failure of the short waves of Lodge and Marconi and their
followers, and the shifting over to the longer waves described
by Tesla; and the dropping of their crash method of signaling
and its replacement by the refined and highly efficient method
of tuning to each other the sending and receiving stations by
the methods discovered by Tesla; and adoption of Tesla's continuous
waves.
In addition, these groping workers saw in wireless only a
point-to-point or station-to-station method of signaling. None
of them foresaw the broadcasting system which Tesla described
in 1893. The system invented and discovered by Tesla is the one
in use today; but who ever heard anyone giving Tesla the slightest
credit?
NINE
TESLA was prolific in opening up vast new empires of knowledge.
He showered his discoveries on the world at such a rapid rate
and in such a nonchalant manner that he seems to have benumbed
the minds of the scientists of his age. He was too busy to spend
time developing the technical or commercial applications of each
new discovery--there were too many other new and important revelations
within his vision that must be brought to light. Discoveries
were not happenstance events to him. He visualized them far in
advance of their unfolding in the laboratory. He had a definite
program of pioneering research in virgin fields of investigation;
and when this was accomplished he would, he felt, have a long
lifetime still ahead of him in which he could return to the practical
utilization of those already revealed.
Meanwhile, he had found a whole new world of interesting effects
in the discharges produced by his coils when energized with the
currents of extremely high frequency. He built larger and larger
coils and experimented with a variety of shapes as constructions.
From the common cylindrical type of coil he developed the cone-shaped
coil, and this development he carried still further by designing
the flat helix, or pancake-shaped coil.
The extremely high-frequency currents furnished a mathematical
paradise in which Tesla could develop his equations to his heart's
content. Through his mathematical abilities and his strange power
of visualization he could frequently make, very quickly, whole
series of discoveries that it took a long time to catch up with
in actual laboratory constructions. This was true of the phenomena
of resonance, or tuned circuits.
Because of their relatively short wavelength, it was comparatively
easy to build condensers for tuning the circuits. when a circuit
is tuned the electric current that flows in it oscillates rhythmically,
just as does a musical string which, when struck or plucked,
vibrates and builds up loops of even lengths with motionless
points between them. There may be only one of these loops, or
there can be many.
Tesla did not invent the idea of electrical resonance. It
was inherent in the mathematical description of the condenser
discharge as developed by Lord Kelvin, and in the physical nature
of alternating currents; but Tesla changed it from a buried mathematical
equation to sparking physical reality. It is the analogy of acoustical
resonance which is a natural property of matter. However, there
were no practical circuits in which resonance could manifest
itself until Tesla developed alternating currents, particularly
the high-frequency currents. He put the master's touch to the
research in this field by developing the principle of resonance
in individual circuits through adjustment of capacity and inductance;
the amplification of effects by inductive coupling of two tuned
circuits, and the peculiar manifestations of resonance in a circuit
tuned to a quarter of the wavelength of the energizing current.
This latter development was a stroke of pure genius.
In the vibrating string, two loops measure a complete wavelength
and one loop measures half a wavelength, since one of the loops
is up when the other is down. Between the two loops is a nodal
point which does not move. From the nodal point to the top of
a loop is a quarter wavelength. Taking the quarter wavelength
as a unit, one end is motionless and the other end swings through
the greatest amplitude of vibration.
By tuning his coils to quarter wavelengths, one end of the
coil, Tesla found, would be entirely inactive while the other
end would swing through tremendous electrical activity. Here
was a unique situation, one end of a small coil inert and the
other end spouting a flood of sparks of hundreds of thousands
or even millions of volts. In a physical analogy it seemed like
the Niagara River reaching the edge of the precipice--and then
its waters shooting mountain high in a gigantic fountain instead
of falling into the chasm.
The quarter-wavelength coil is the electrical counterpart
of the vibrating tine of the tuning fork, the ordinary clock
pendulum, or the vibrating reed. Once accomplished, it was a
simple thing--but its discovery was a work of genius. It was
a development that could have come with certainty to a master
mind working on broad principles, as Tesla was doing all his
life, and only by the most improbable chance to those who without
illumination were tinkering with gadgets and hoping to stumble
on something out of which they could make a fortune.
A high-voltage coil with one dead end greatly simplified many
problems. One of Tesla's big problems had been the finding of
means to insulate the high-voltage secondary coil of transformers
from the low-voltage primary which energized it. Tesla's discovery
eliminated the voltage entirely from one end of the secondary
so it could be connected directly to the primary or to the ground,
while the other end continued to spout its lightning. It was
for utilizing this situation that he developed the conical and
pancake-shaped coils.
Tesla's laboratory was filled with a variety of coils. He
discovered early in his researches that while operating a coil
of a given wavelength, other coils in the laboratory, tuned either
to this wavelength or one of its harmonics, would respond sympathetically
by spouting a crown of sparks although not connected in any way
to the operating coil.
Here was an example of transmission of energy to a distance
through space. It was not necessary for Tesla to make a series
of experiments to understand the implications of this situation.
He was never lost in a new territory which he opened. His mind
rose to such heights of understanding that he could survey a
revealed world in a glance.
Tesla planned a spectacular demonstration of the new principle.
He had his workmen string a wire on insulating supports on all
four walls near the ceiling of the largest room in his laboratory.
The wire was connected to one of his oscillators.
It was late at night when the installation was ready for the
experiment. In order to make the test, Tesla prepared two tubes
of glass about three feet long and a half-inch in diameter. He
sealed one end of each, slightly evacuated the air from the tubes
and then sealed the other ends.
Tesla told the workmen he wanted the room completely darkened
for the test, all lights out; and when he gave the signal he
wanted the switch of his oscillator closed. "If my theory
is correct," he explained, "when you close the switch
these tubes will become swords of fire."
walking to the middle of the room Tesla gave orders to turn
out all lights. The laboratory was in pitch darkness. A workman
stood with his hand on the switch of the oscillator.
"Now!" shouted Tesla.
Instantly the great room was flooded with brilliant but weird
blue-white light and the workmen beheld the tall, slim figure
of Tesla in the middle of the room waving vigorously what looked
like two flaming swords. The two glass tubes glowed with an unearthly
radiance, and he would parry and thrust with them as if he were
in a double fencing match.
To the workmen in the laboratory, it was a common experience
for Tesla to perform spectacular feats; but this went beyond
all limits. He had previously lighted his electric vacuum lamps
but they were always connected to coils that supplied them with
electricity. Now they lighted without being connected to any
source of electricity.
This demonstration, made in 1890, led to Tesla's adopting
the technique as the permanent method of lighting his laboratories.
The loop around the ceiling was always energized; and if anyone
wished a light at any position, it was only necessary to take
a glass tube and place it in any convenient location.
when tesla undertook the development of a new kind of electric
light, he went to the sun for his model. He saw in the photo-
sphere, or outer gaseous layer of the sun, light being created
by the vibration of molecules. That was the theory then prevalent;
and he sought to use the same method.
In the tremendous burst of revelation which he received in
the park at Budapest as he gazed into the flaming orb of the
setting sun, there had flashed into his mind, as we have seen,
not only the marvelous invention of the rotary magnetic field
and the many uses of multiple alternating currents, but also
the grand generalization that everything in Nature operated on
the principle of vibrations that corresponded to alternating
currents. The host of inventions and discoveries which he made
in all succeeding years had their roots, too, in that sublime
experience.
In the sun, it was believed, light was created when the molecules
were vibrated by heat. Tesla sought to improve on this method
by vibrating the molecules by electrical forces. The sparks and
electrical flames created by his high-voltage coils were associated,
he believed, with molecular vibrations in the air. If he could
bottle the gases of the air and set them in vibration electrically,
they should produce light without heat, since the energy was
supplied by cold electric currents.
Sir fiilliam Crookes, who, long before Edison, produced an
incandescent electric light by sealing an electrically heated
wire in a vacuum tube, had carried out an extended series of
experiments in conducting electricity through the gases in glass
vessels under a variety of conditions ranging from atmospheric
pressure to the highest vacuum obtainable, and had produced some
strange effects. Crookes used the high-voltage current produced
by the old-fashioned induction coil.
Tesla expected that when he bottled the strange effects he
had observed with his currents of extremely high frequency, he
would produce manifestations radically different from those found
by Crookes, or Geissler, who also worked in this field. In this
he was not disappointed.
Four types of an entirely new kind of electric light were
produced by Tesla, using electrically activated molecules of
gas: 1. Tubes in which a solid body was rendered incandescent;
2. Tubes in which phosphorescent and fluorescent materials were
caused to luminesce; 3. Tubes in which rarefied gases became
luminous, and 4. Tubes in which luminosity was produced in gases
at ordinary pressures.
Like Crookes, Tesla passed his high-frequency currents through
gases at all pressures, from lowest-pressure vacuum to normal
atmospheric pressure, and obtained brilliant luminous effects
exceeding anything previously attained. He substituted for air
in his tubes other gases, including mercury vapor, and observed
the peculiar color and other effects they yielded.
Noting the variety of colors the various gases, and even air,
showed under different pressures, Tesla suspected that not all
of the energy radiated was given off as visible light, but that
some of it emanated as black light. Testing this hypothesis,
he placed sulphide of zinc and other phosphorescent and fluorescent
materials in his tubes and caused them to glow. In these experiments
(they were made in 1889) Tesla laid the foundation for our most
recently developed type of highly efficient lamps used in fluorescent
lighting which are generally believed to have been invented in
recent years. This system of utilizing the wasted ultra-violet
or invisible black light by changing it to visible light by means
of phosphorescent substances is Tesla's invention. Roentgen was
using similar tubes, but of plain glass and the fluorescent substance
on a table in his laboratory when, a half-dozen years later,
he discovered X-rays. Tesla invented, also, the neon-tube type
of lamp, and even bent his tubes to form letters and geometrical
shapes, as is done in neon-tube signs. This is true in spite
of some antecedent and concurrent laboratory experiments by Crookes
and J. J. Thompson, neither of whom developed any lamps or practical
applications.
Tesla had discovered early in 1890 that his high-frequency
currents had properties so different from the ordinary induction-coil,
or spark-coil, currents, that he was able to light his tubes
just as well, and sometimes even better, with only one wire connecting
them with the high-tension transformer, the return circuit being
effected wirelessly through space.
In working with types of lamps consisting of tubes in the
center of which there was a conducting wire, and with the tube
filled with air under a partial vacuum, Tesla discovered that
the gas would serve as a better conductor of the high-frequency
current than the wire. From this observation he was able to develop
many spectacular experiments which appeared to violate the most
fundamental laws of electricity. He was able to short circuit
lamps and other apparatus with heavy bars of metal which, with
ordinary currents, would completely deprive the devices of electricity
so they would be unable to operate. However, with his high-frequency
currents, the lamps would light and the devices operate just
as if the short-circuiting bar were not present.
One of his startling experiments consisted of placing a long
glass tube partially evacuated of its air inside a slightly longer
copper tube with a closed end. A slit was cut in the copper tube
in its central section so the tube inside would be seen. when
the copper tube was connected in the high-frequency circuit,
the air in the tube was brilliantly illuminated; but no evidence
could be found of any current flowing through the short-circuiting
copper shell. The electricity preferred to pass through the glass
tube, by induction, to the enclosed partially evacuated air,
pass through the low-pressure air for the full length of the
tube, and then pass out the other end by induction, rather than
traverse the complete metal path in the surrounding metal tube.
we have then, [said Tesla], as far as we can now see, in the
gas a conductor which is capable of transmitting electric impulses
of any frequency which we may be able to produce. Could the frequency
be brought high enough, then a queer system of distribution,
which would be likely to interest gas companies, might be realized;
metal pipes filled with gas--the metal being the insulator and
the gas the conductor--supplying phosphorescent bulbs, or perhaps
devices not yet invented.
This remarkable conductivity of gases, including the air,
at low pressures, later led Tesla to suggest, in a published
statement in 1914, a system of lighting on a terrestrial scale
in which he proposed to treat the whole earth, with its surrounding
atmosphere, as if it were a single lamp.
The atmosphere is under the greatest pressure at the surface
of the earth, owing to the weight of the overlying air. As we
go higher in the air there are increasing amounts below us and
less above, so, the greater the elevation, the lower is the pressure
of the air.
At higher altitudes the gases in the atmosphere are in the
same condition as the air in the partially evacuated tubes he
prepared in his laboratory, Tesla explained, and therefore it
would serve as an excellent conductor of high-frequency currents.
The aurora borealis is a natural example of the effect Tesla
sought, and it is produced by Nature as Tesla planned; but this
was not known when he evolved his idea.
The flow of a suficient amount of the electricity in the right
form through the upper regions of the atmosphere would cause
the air to become luminous. The whole earth would be transformed
into a giant lamp, with the night sky completely illuminated.
It would be unnecessary, he pointed out, to use any lamps along
streets, roads or other outdoor areas, except during periods
in which storms or low clouds prevailed. Ocean travel would be
made safer and more pleasant, for the sky over the whole ocean
would be illuminated, making the night as bright as day.
The methods by which Tesla intended to conduct his high-frequency
currents to the upper air have not been published. when he outlined
the project, he stated that the plan did not present any dificulties
that could not be handled in a practical way. This meant that
he had definite means for accomplishing his purpose.
The air, he stated, possesses a high degree of conductivity
for high-frequency currents at an altitude of 35,000 feet, but
could be used effectively at lower altitudes. The accuracy of
Tesla's prediction with respect to the conductivity of the upper
air is attested by one of the problems encountered today in the
operation of airplanes at altitudes even lower than 25,000 feet.
The ignition system, carrying high-voltage currents to the spark
plugs in the airplane engines, which explodes the gas in the
cylinders, has been giving trouble at the higher altitudes because
the electricity escapes with a great deal of freedom into the
surrounding air. At lower altitudes the air is an excellent insulator,
especially for direct current and low-frequency currents, but,
as Tesla discovered, at the higher altitudes where low pressures
prevail it becomes an excellent conductor for the high-frequency
currents. The wires leading to spark plugs become surrounded
by a corona, or electrical halo, which indicates the escape of
the current. This interferes with the efficiency, if it does
not entirely prevent the operation, of devices employing high-frequency
or high-potential currents, such as radio apparatus. (Since Tesla
discovered that metal wires and rods which act as excellent conductors
for direct and low-frequency currents can act as excellent insulators
for his high-frequency currents, it is obvious that the common
suggestion made for delivering a current to the upper air by
means of metal cables suspended from balloons is entirely impractical.)
This proposal by Tesla to transform the earth into a giant
lamp was again referred to by him in the twenties. At this time
he was without funds for carrying on experimental work, and,
as he never announced details until after he had tested them
in practice, he withheld a disclosure of his methods. He was
hopeful, however, that he would soon secure money enough to permit
him to test his plan.
The author bombarded Tesla with questions in an effort to
learn the general plan he had in mind. Tesla was adamant.
"If I should answer three more of your questions you
would know as much about my plan as I do," he replied.
"Nevertheless, Dr. Tesla," I replied, "I am
going to outline in my article the only plan that appears to
me to be feasible under our known physical laws, and you can
deny or afirm it. your molecular bombardment tubes are prolific
producers of ultra-violet and X-rays and could produce a powerful
beam of this radiation which would ionize the air through great
distances. when these rays pass through the air they ionize it,
making it a good conductor of electricity of all kinds at suficiently
high voltages. By producing such a beam on a high mountain and
directing it upward this would provide a conducting path through
the air to any height desired. you could then send your high-frequency
currents to the upper air without leaving the ground."
"If you publish that," said Tesla, "it must
appear as your plan, not mine."
The article was published with the foregoing speculation in
it; but neither afirmation nor denial was forthcoming from the
inventor, and nothing more can be said in its favor. Tesla may
have had a simpler and more practical plan in mind. (Since completing
this volume the author has learned that Tesla planned to install
a bank of powerful ultra-violet lamps on top of his tower at
wardencliff (cf. p. 207), and had the upper Platform designed
to receive them.)
There was one other plan which Tesla discussed on a number
of occasions when considering terrestrial electrical conditions,
and which he may have had in mind in this connection. He pointed
out that the earth is a good conductor of electricity and the
upper air is also a good conductor, while the intervening lower
stratum of air is an insulator for many kinds of current. This
combination provides what is known as a condenser, a device which
will store and discharge electricity. By charging the earth,
the upper air would become charged by induction. when our spinning
earth was so transformed into a terrestrial Leyden jar, it could
be alternately charged and discharged, so that a current would
flow both in the upper air and in the ground, producing the electrical
flow which would cause the upper air to become self-luminous.
Tesla, however, never became quite so specific in applying the
condenser plan to this problem as the preceding sentence indicates.
His plan may still exist in his papers, which, at the present
writing, are sealed against inspection except by Government oficials.
Out of the almost empty space in a six-inch vacuum tube Tesla
succeeded in extracting at least five epoch-making discoveries.
Tesla's lamp was more prolific in producing wonders than the
Aladdin's lamp of the Arabian Nights. He gave his "magic"
lamp to science fifty years ago. This magic talisman was Tesla's
carbon-button lamp which, apart from the other discoveries that
came of it, was in itself, just as a lamp, a brilliant scientific
discovery--and still remains unused. Edison developed the practical
incandescent filament electric lamp and was entitled to, and
receives, a tremendous amount of credit for his accomplishment.
Tesla invented an absolutely original type of lamp, the incandescent-button
lamp, which gives twenty times as much light for the same amount
of current consumed; and his contribution remains practically
unknown.
The carbon-button type of lamp was described by Tesla in his
lecture before the American Institute of Engineers in New York
in May, 1891, and further developments were presented in the
lectures which he gave in England and France in February and
March, 1892. In his New York lecture he said:
Electrostatic effects are in many ways available for the production
of light. For instance, we may place a body of some refractory
material in a closed, and preferably in a more or less air exhausted,
globe, connect it to a source of high, rapidly alternating potential,
causing the molecules of the gas to strike it many times a second
at enormous speeds, and in this way, with trillions of invisible
hammers, pound it until it gets incandescent. Or we may place
a body in a very highly exhausted globe, and by employing very
high frequencies and potentials maintain it at any desired degree
of incandescence.
He made a vast number of experiments with this carbon-button
lamp and gave a description of the most significant ones in his
lecture before the English and French scientific societies in
the spring of 1892. It was, however, only one of the many new
types of lamps and other important developments which he included
in this spectacular presentation of his work.
The carbon-button lamps were of very simple construction.
Basically they consisted of a spherical glass globe three to
six inches in diameter, in the center of which was a piece of
solid refractory material mounted on the end of a wire which
protruded through the globe and served as a single-wire connection
with the source of high-frequency currents. The globe contained
rarefied air.
when the high-frequency current was connected with the lamp,
molecules of the air in the globe, coming in contact with the
central button, became charged and were repelled at high velocity
to the glass globe where they lost their charge and were then
repelled back at equally high velocity, striking the button.
Millions of millions of such processes each second caused the
button to become heated to incandescence.
In these simple glass globes Tesla was able to produce extremely
high temperatures, the upper limit of which seemed to be determined
by the amount of current used. He was able to vaporize carbon
directly into a gas, observing that the liquid state was so unstable
it could not exist. Zirconia, the most heat-resistant substance
known, could be melted instantly. He tried diamonds and rubies
as buttons--and they too were vaporized. when using the device
as a lamp it was not his desire to melt the substances; but he
always carried experiments to their upper and lower limits. Carborundum,
he observed, was so refractory that it was possible when using
buttons made of this material (calcium carbide) to run the lamps
at higher current densities than was possible with other substances.
Carborundum did not vaporize so readily, nor did it make deposits
on the inside of the globe.
Tesla thus evolved a technique in operating the lamps whereby
the incandescent button transferred its heat energy to the molecules
of the very small amount of gas in the tube so that they became
a source of light, thus causing the lamps to function like the
sun, the button being the massive body of the sun and the surrounding
gas like the photosphere, or atmospheric light-emitting layer,
of that body.
Tesla had a keen sense of dramatic values, but quite apart
from this he undoubtedly enjoyed a unique satisfaction when he
was able to light this miniature sun in the currents that he
passed through his body--high-frequency currents of hundreds
of thousands of volts. with one hand grasping a terminal of his
high-frequency transformer and the other holding aloft this bulb
containing an incandescent miniature sun which he had created--posing
like the Statue of Liberty--he was able to make his new lamp
radiate its brilliant illumination. Here, you might say, was
the superman manifesting his ultramundane accomplishments. In
addition, there was a satisfaction which was associated purely
with the plane of ordinary mortals. Edison had laughed at his
plan for developing the alternating-current system, and had declared
that these currents were not only useless but deadly. Surely,
this was an adequate answer; Tesla would let Nature make his
replies.
Observing this working model of the incandescent sun which
he could hold in his hand, Tesla was quick to see many of the
implications of its phenomena. Every electrical wave that surged
through the tiny central bead caused a shower of particles to
radiate from it at tremendous velocity and strike the surrounding
glass globe, only to be reflected back to the bead. The sun,
Tesla reasoned, is an incandescent body that carries a high electrical
charge and it, too, will emit vast showers of tiny particles,
each carrying great energy because of its extremely high velocity.
In the case of the sun, and other stars like it, there was no
glass globe to act as a barrier, so the showers of particles
continued out into the vast realms of surrounding space.
All space was filled with these particles and they were continually
bombarding the earth, blasting matter wherever they struck, just
as they did in his globes. He had seen this process take place
in his globes, where the most refractory carbon beads could be
shattered into atomic dust by the bombardment of the electrified
particles.
He sought to detect these particles striking the earth: one
of the manifestations of this bombardment, he declared, was the
aurora borealis. The records of the experimental methods by which
he detected these rays are not available; but he published an
announcement that he had detected them, measured their energy,
and found that they moved with tremendously high velocities imparted
to them by the hundreds of millions of volts potential of the
sun.
Neither the scientists nor the general public in the early
nineties were in a mood for such fantastic figures, or for any
claim that the earth was bombarded by such destructive rays.
It would be describing the situation in very conservative fashion
to state that Tesla's report was not taken seriously.
when, however, the French physicist, Henri Becquerel, in 1896,
discovered the mysterious rays emitted by uranium, and subsequent
investigations, culminating with the discovery by Pierre and
Marie Curie, in Paris, of radium, whose atoms were exploding
spontaneously without apparent cause, Tesla was able to point
to his cosmic rays as the simple cause of the radioactivity of
radium, thorium, uranium and other substances. And he predicted
that other substances would also be found to be made radioactive
by bombardment with these rays. The victory for Tesla, however,
was only temporary, for the scientific world did not accept his
theory. Nevertheless, Tesla was a better prophet than he knew,
or anyone else suspected.
Thirty years later Dr. Robert A. Millikan rediscovered these
rays, believing them to be vibratory in character like light,
and was followed by Dr. Arthur H. Compton, who proved the existence
of cosmic rays consisting of high-velocity particles of matter,
just as Tesla described them. They started by finding energies
of ten million volts; and today the energies are far up in the
billions and even trillions of electron volts. And these and
other investigators describe these rays as shattering atoms of
matter producing showers of debris--just as Tesla predicted.
In 1934, Frederick Joliot, son-in-law of the Curies, discovered
that artificial radioactivity was produced in ordinary materials
by bombarding them with particles in just the manner which Tesla
described. Joliot received the Nobel Prize for his discovery;
no one gives any credit to Tesla.
Tesla's molecular-bombardment lamp was the ancestor of another
very modern development--the atom-smashing cyclotron. The cyclotron,
developed by E. O. Lawrence, of the University of California,
during the past twenty years, is a device in which electrified
particles are whirled in a magnetic field in a circular chamber
until they reach a very high velocity, and are then led out of
the chamber in a narrow stream. The giant machine, with a magnet
as high as a house, partially completed at present writing, will
emit so powerful a beam of charged particles that, according
to Prof. Lawrence, if allowed to impinge on a building brick
they will totally disintegrate it. The smaller models were used
to bombard a variety of substances to render them radioactive,
to disintegrate them or transmute their atoms into those of other
elements.
The small glass globe, six inches or less in diameter, holding
Tesla's molecular-bombardment lamp produced exactly this same
disintegrating effect on solid matter, probably with a more intensified
effect than any atom-smashing cyclotron now in existence despite
their tremendous size. (Even small ones weigh twenty tons.)
In describing one of the experiments with his lamp, one in
which a ruby was mounted in a carbon button, Tesla said:
It was found, among other things, that in such cases, no matter
where the bombardment began, just as soon as a high temperature
was reached there was generally one of the bodies which seemed
to take most of the bombardment upon itself, the other, or others,
being thereby relieved. This quality appeared to depend principally
on the point of fusion, and on the facility with which the body
was "evaporated," or, generally speaking, disintegrated--meaning
by the latter term not only the throwing off of atoms, but likewise
of larger lumps. The observation made was in accordance with
generally accepted notions. In a highly exhausted bulb electricity
is carried off from the electrode by independent carriers, which
are partly atoms, or molecules, of the residual atmosphere, and
partly the atoms, molecules, or lumps thrown off from the electrode.
If the electrode is composed of bodies of different character,
and if one of these is more easily disintegrated than the others,
most of the electricity supplied is carried off from that body,
which is then brought to a higher temperature than the others,
and this the more, as upon an increase of the temperature the
body is still more easily disintegrated.
Substances which resisted melting in temperatures attainable
in laboratory furnaces of that day were easily disintegrated
in Tesla's simple-lamp disintegrator, which provided a powerful
beam of disintegrating particles by having them concentrated
from all directions by a spherical reflector (the globe of his
lamp), a kind a three-dimension burning glass, but operating
with electrified particles instead of heat rays. It accomplished
the same effect as the heavy atom disintegrators of today, but
much more efficiently in a globe so light in weight it almost
floated off in air. Its simplicity and efficiency is further
increased by the fact that it causes the substance that is being
disintegrated to supply the particles by which the disintegration
is effected.
There is one more very modern discovery of great importance
embodied in Tesla's molecular-bombardment lamp--the point electron
miscroscope, which provides magnifications of a million diameters,
or ten to twenty times more powerful than the better known electron
microscope which in turn is capable of magnifications up to fifty
times greater than the optical microscope.
In the point electron microscope, electrified particles shoot
out in straight lines from a tiny active spot on a piece of substance
kept at a high potential, and reproduce on the spherical surface
of a glass globe the pattern of the microscopically small area
from which the particles are issuing. The size of the glass sphere
furnishes the only limit to the degree of magnification that
can be obtained; the greater the radius, the greater the magnification.
Since electrons are smaller than light waves, objects too small
to be seen by light waves can be tremendously enlarged by the
patterns produced by the emitted electrons.
Tesla produced on the surface of the spherical globe of his
lamp phosphorescent images of what was taking place on the disintegrating
button when he used extremely high vacuum. He described this
effect in his lectures in the spring of 1892, and his description
will stand with hardly a change in a word for a description of
the million-magnification point electron microscope. Quoting
from his lecture:
To the eye the electrode appears uniformly brilliant, but
there are upon it points constantly shifting and wandering about,
of a temperature far above the mean, and this materially hastens
the process of deterioration. . . . Exhaust a bulb to a very
high degree, so that with a fairly high potential the discharge
cannot pass--that is, not a luminous one, for a weak invisible
discharge occurs always, in all probability. Now raise slowly
and carefully the potential, leaving the primary current no more
than for an instant. At a certain point, two, three or half a
dozen phosphorescent spots will appear on the globe. These places
of the glass are evidently more violently bombarded than the
others, this being due to the unevenly distributed electric density,
necessitated, of course, by sharp projections, or, generally
speaking, irregularities of the electrode. But the luminous patches
are constantly changing in position, which is especially well
observed if one manages to produce very few, and this indicates
that the configuration of the electrode is rapidly changing.
It would be an act of simple justice if in the future scientists
would extend credit to Tesla for being the one who discovered
the electron microscope. There is no reduction in the glory due
him because he did not specifically describe the electron, then
unknown, in its operations, but assumed the effect was due to
electrically charged atoms.
when Tesla studied the performance of various models of this
and his other gaseous lamps, he observed that the output of visible
light changed under various operating conditions. He knew they
gave off both visible and invisible rays. He used a variety of
phosphorescent and fluorescent substances for detecting the ultra-violet
or black light. Usually, the changes in the visible and ultra-violet
light about balanced each other; as one increased the other decreased,
with the remainder of the energy accounted for by heat losses.
In his molecular-bombardment lamp he found, he reported in his
1892 lectures, "visible black light and a very special radiation."
He was experimenting with this radiation which, he reported,
produced shadowgraph pictures on plates in metal containers,
in his laboratory when it was destroyed by fire in March, 1895.
This "very special radiation" was not further described
at that time in published articles; but when Prof. fiilhelm Konrad
Roentgen, in Germany, in December, 1895, announced the discovery
of X-rays, Tesla was able immediately to reproduce the same results
by means of his "very special radiation," indicating
that these and X-rays had very similar properties although produced
in somewhat different ways. Immediately upon reading Roentgen's
announcement, Tesla forwarded to the German scientist shadowgraph
pictures produced by his "very special radiation."
Roentgen replied: "The pictures are very interesting. If
you would only be so kind as to disclose the manner in which
you obtained them."
Tesla did not consider that this situation gave him any priority
in the discovery of X-rays, nor did he ever advance any claims;
but he immediately started an extensive series of investigations
into their nature. while others were trying to coax out of the
type of tube used by Roentgen enough X-rays to take shadow photographs
through such thin structures as the hands and feet held very
close to the bulb, Tesla was taking photographs through the skull
at a distance of forty feet from the tube. He elsewhere described
at this time an unidentified type of radiation coming from a
spark gap, when a heavy current was passed, that was not a transverse
wave like light, or Hertzian waves, and could not be stopped
by interposing metal plates.
Tesla, thus, in one lecture reporting his investigations covering
a period of two years, offered to the world--in addition to his
new electric vacuum lamps, his highly efficient incandescent
lamp, and his high-frequency and high-potential currents and
apparatus--at least five outstanding scientific discoveries:
1. Cosmic rays; 2. Artificial radioactivity; 3. Disintegrating
beam of electrified particles, or atom smasher; 4. Electron microscope;
and 5. "Very special radiation" (X-rays).
At least four of these innovations, when "rediscovered"
up to forty years later, won Nobel Prizes for others; and Tesla's
name is never mentioned in connection with them.
Yet Tesla's lifetime work was hardly well started!
TEN
TESLA had a remarkable ability for carrying on simultaneously
a number of widely different lines of scientific research. while
pursuing his studies of high-frequency electrical oscillations
with all of their ramifications from vacuum lamps to radio, he
was also investigating mechanical vibrations; and he had a rare
foresight into the many useful applications to which they could
be put, and which have since been realized.
Tesla never did things by halves. Almost everything he attempted
went off like a flash of lightning with a very satisfactory resounding
clap of thunder following. Even when he did not so plan events,
they appeared to fashion themselves into spectacular climaxes.
In 1896 while his fame was still on the ascendant he planned
a nice quiet little vibration experiment in his Houston Street
laboratory. Since he had moved into these quarters in 1895, the
place had established a reputation for itself because of the
peculiar noises and lights that emanated from it at all hours
of the day and night, and because it was constantly being visited
by the most famous people in the country.
The quiet little vibration experiment produced an earthquake,
a real earthquake in which people and buildings and everything
in them got a more tremendous shaking than they did in any of
the natural earthquakes that have visited the metropolis. In
an area of a dozen square city blocks, occupied by hundreds of
buildings housing tens of thousands of persons, there was a sudden
roaring and shaking, shattering of panes of glass, breaking of
steam, gas and water pipes. Pandemonium reigned as small objects
danced around rooms, plaster descended from walls and ceilings,
and pieces of machinery weighing tons were moved from their bolted
anchorages and shifted to awkward spots in factory lofts.
"It was all caused, quite unexpectedly, by a little piece
of apparatus you could slip in your pocket," said Tesla.
The device that precipitated the sudden crisis had been used
for a long time by Tesla as a toy to amuse his friends. It was
a mechanical oscillator, and was used to produce vibrations.
The motor-driven device that the barber straps on his hand to
give a patron an "electric massage" is a descendant
of Tesla's mechanical oscillator. There is, of course, nothing
electric about an "electric massage" except the power
used to produce vibrations which are transmitted through the
barber's fingers to the scalp.
Tesla developed in the early nineties a mechanical-electrical
oscillator for the generation of high-frequency alternating currents.
The driving engine produced on a shaft simple reciprocating motion
that was not changed to rotary motion. Mounted on either end
of the shaft was a coil of many turns of wire that moved back
and forth with high frequency between the poles of electromagnets,
and in this way generated high-frequency alternating currents.
The engine was claimed by Tesla to have a very high efficiency
compared to the common type of engine, which changed reciprocating
to rotary motion by means of a crank shaft. It had no valves
or other moving parts, except the reciprocating piston with its
attached shaft and coils, so that mechanical losses were very
low. It maintained such an extremely high order of constancy
of speed, he stated, that the alternating current generated by
the oscillator could be used to drive clocks, without any pendulum
or balance-wheel control mechanisms, and they would keep time
more accurately than the sun.
This engine may have had industrial possibilities but Tesla
was not interested in them. To him it was just a convenient way
of producing a high-frequency alternating current constant in
frequency and voltage, or mechanical vibrations, if used without
the electrical parts. He operated the engine on compressed air
and also by steam at 320 pounds and also at 80 pounds pressure.
while perfecting this device, he had opportunity to observe
interesting effects produced by vibration. These were objectionable
in the engine when it was used as a dynamo, so he adopted suitable
measures to eliminate or suppress them. The vibrations as such,
however, interested him. Although they were detrimental to the
machine, he found their physiological effects were, at times,
quite pleasant. Later he built a small mechanical oscillator
driven by compressed air which was designed for no other purpose
than to produce vibrations. He built a platform insulated from
the floor by rubber and cork. He then mounted the oscillator
on the under side of the platform. The purpose of the rubber
and cork under the platform was to keep the vibrations from leaking
into the building and thereby reducing the effect on the platform.
Visitors found this vibrating platform one of the most interesting
of the great array of fascinating and fantastic exhibits with
which he dazzled the society folk who flocked to his laboratory.
Great hopes were entertained by Tesla of applying these vibrations
for therapeutic and health-improving effects. He had opportunity
to observe, through his own experience and that of his employees,
that they produce some very definite physiological actions.
Samuel Clemens, better known to the public as "Mark Twain,"
and Tesla were close friends. Clemens was a frequent visitor
to the Tesla laboratory. Tesla had been playing with his vibratory
mechanism for some time, and had learned a good deal about the
results that followed from varying doses of vibration, when one
evening Clemens dropped in.
Clemens, on learning about the new mechanism, wanted to experience
its vitalizing vibrations. He stood on the platform while the
oscillator set it into operation. He was thrilled by the new
experience. He was full of adjectives. "This gives you vigor
and vitality," he exclaimed. After he had been on the platform
for a while Tesla advised him: "you have had enough, Mr.
Clemens. you had better come down now."
"Not by a jugfull," replied Clemens. "I am
enjoying myself."
"But you had better come down, Mr. Clemens. It is best
that you do so," insisted Tesla.
"you couldn't get me off this with a derrick," laughed
Clemens.
"Remember, I am advising you, Mr. Clemens."
"I'm having the time of my life. I'm going to stay right
up here and enjoy myself. Look here, Tesla, you don't appreciate
what a wonderful device you have here to give a lift to tired
humanity. . . . Clemens continued along this line for several
minutes. Suddenly he stopped talking, bit his lower lip, straightened
his body and stalked stiffy but suddenly from the platform.
"Quick, Tesla! Where is it?" snapped Clemens, half
begging, half demanding.
"Right over here, through that little door in the corner,"
said Tesla. "And remember, Mr. Clemens, I advised you to
come down some time ago," he called after the rapidly moving
figure.
The laxative effect of the vibrator was an old story to the
members of the laboratory staff.
Tesla pursued his studies of mechanical vibrations in many
directions. This was almost a virgin field for scientific research.
Scarcely any fundamental research had been done in the field
since Pythagoras, twenty-five hundred years before, had established
the science of music through his study of vibrating strings;
and many of the wonders with which Tesla had startled the world
in the field of high-frequency and high-potential currents had
grown out of his simple secret for tuning electrical circuits
so that the electricity vibrated in resonance with its circuit.
He now visualized mechanical vibrations building up resonance
conditions in the same way, to produce effects of tremendous
magnitude on physical objects.
In order to carry out what he expected to be some minor and
very small-scale experiments, he screwed the base of one of his
small mechanical oscillators to an iron supporting pillar in
the middle of his laboratory and set it into oscillation. It
had been his observation that it took some time to build up its
maximum speed of vibration. The longer it operated the faster
the tempo it attained. He had noticed that all objects did not
respond in the same way to vibrations. One of the many objects
around the laboratory would suddenly go into violent vibration
as it came into resonance with the fundamental vibration of the
oscillator or some harmonic of it. As the period of the oscillator
changed, the first object would stop and some other object in
resonance with the new rate would start vibrating. The reason
for this selective response was very clear to Tesla, but he had
never previously had the opportunity to observe the phenomenon
on a really large scale.
Tesla's laboratory was on an upper floor of a loft building.
It was on the north side of Houston Street, and the second house
east of Mulberry Street. About three hundred feet south of Houston
Street on the east side of Mulberry Street was the long, four-story
red-brick building famous as Police Headquarters. Throughout
the neighborhood there were many loft buildings ranging from
five to ten stories in height, occupied by factories of all kinds.
Sandwiched between them were the small narrow tenement houses
of a densely packed Italian population. A few blocks to the south
was Chinatown, a few blocks to the west was the garment-trades
area, a short distance to the east was a densely crowded tenement-house
district.
It was in this highly variegated neighborhood that Tesla unexpectedly
staged a spectacular demonstration of the properties of sustained
powerful vibrations. The surrounding population knew about Tesla's
laboratory, knew that it was a place where strange, magical,
mysterious events took place and where an equally strange man
was doing fearful and wonderful things with that tremendously
dangerous secret agent known as electricity. Tesla, they knew,
was a man who was to be both venerated and feared, and they did
a much better job of fearing than of venerating him.
Quite unmindful of what anyone thought about him, Tesla carried
on his vibration and all other experiments. Just what experiment
he had in mind on this particular morning will never be known.
He busied himself with preparations for it while his oscillator
on the supporting iron pillar of the structure kept building
up an ever higher frequency of vibrations. He noted that every
now and then some heavy piece of apparatus would vibrate sharply,
the floor under him would rumble for a second or two--that a
window pane would sing audibly, and other similar transient events
would happen--all of which was quite familiar to him. These observations
told him that his oscillator was tuning up nicely, and he probably
wondered why he had not tried it firmly attached to a solid building
support before.
Things were not going so well in the neighborhood, however.
Down in Police Headquarters in Mulberry Street the "cops"
were quite familiar with strange sounds and lights coming from
the Tesla laboratory. They could hear clearly the sharp snapping
of the lightnings created by his coils. If anything queer was
happening in the neighborhood, they knew that Tesla was in back
of it in some way or other.
On this particular morning the cops were surprised to feel
the building rumbling under their feet. Chairs moved across floors
with no one near them. Objects on the oficers' desks danced about
and the desks themselves moved. It must be an earthquake! It
grew stronger. Chunks of plaster fell from the ceilings. A flood
of water ran down one of the stairs from a broken pipe. The windows
started to vibrate with a shrill note that grew more intense.
Some of the windows shattered.
"That isn't an earthquake," shouted one of the oficers,
"it's that blankety-blank Tesla. Get up there quickly,"
he called to a squad of men, "and stop him. Use force if
you have to, but stop him. He'll wreck the city."
The officers started on a run for the building around the
corner. Pouring into the streets were many scores of people excitedly
leaving near-by tenement and factory buildings, believing an
earthquake had caused the smashing of windows, breaking of pipes,
moving of furniture and the strange vibrations.
without waiting for the slow-pokey elevator, the cops rushed
up the stairs--and as they did so they felt the building vibrate
even more strongly than did police headquarters. There was a
sense of impending doom--that the whole building would disintegrate--and
their fears were not relieved by the sound of smashing glass
and the queer roars and screams that came from the walls and
floors.
Could they reach Tesla's laboratory in time to stop him? Or
would the building tumble down on their heads and everyone in
it be buried in the ruins, and probably every building in the
neighborhood? Maybe he was making the whole earth shake in this
way! would this madman be destroying the world? It was destroyed
once before by water. Maybe this time it would be destroyed by
that agent of the devil that they call electricity!
Just as the cops rushed into Tesla's laboratory to tackle--they
knew not what--the vibrations stopped and they beheld a strange
sight. They arrived just in time to see the tall gaunt figure
of the inventor swing a heavy sledge hammer and shatter a small
iron contraption mounted on the post in the middle of the room.
Pandemonium gave way to a deep, heavy silence.
Tesla was the first to break the silence. Resting his sledge
hammer against the pillar, he turned his tall, lean, coatless
figure to the cops. He was always selfpossessed, always a commanding
presence--an effect that could in no way be attributed to his
slender build, but seemed more to emanate from his eyes. Bowing
from the waist in his courtly manner, he addressed the policemen,
who were too out of breath to speak, and probably overawed into
silence by their fantastic experience.
"Gentlemen," he said, "I am sorry, but you
are just a trifle too late to witness my experiment. I found
it necessary to stop it suddenly and unexpectedly and in an unusual
way just as you entered. If you will come around this evening
I will have another oscillator attached to this platform and
each of you can stand on it. you will, I am sure, find it a most
interesting and pleasurable experience. Now you must leave, for
I have many things to do. Good day, gentlemen."
George Scherff, Tesla's secretary, was standing nearby when
Tesla so dramatically smashed his earthquake maker. Tesla never
told the story beyond this point, and Mr. Scherff declares he
does not recall what the response of the cops was. Imagination
must finish the finale to the story.
At the moment, though, Tesla was quite sincere in his attitude.
He had no idea of what had happened elsewhere in the neighborhood
as a result of his experiment, but the effect on his own laboratory
had been sufficiently threatening to cause him to halt it suddenly.
when he learned the details, however, he was convinced that he
was correct in his belief that the field of mechanical vibrations
was rich with opportunities for scientific investigation. we
have no records available of any further major experiments with
vibration in that laboratory. Perhaps the Police and Building
Departments had offered some emphatic suggestions to him concerning
experiments of this nature.
Tesla's observations in this experiment were limited to what
took place on the floor of the building in which his laboratory
was located, but apparently very little happened there until
a great deal had happened elsewhere. The oscillator was firmly
fixed to a supporting column and there were similar supporting
columns directly under it on each floor down to the foundations.
The vibrations were transmitted through the columns to the ground.
This section of the city is built on deep sand that extends down
some hundreds of feet before bed rock is reached. It is well
known to seismologists that earthquake vibrations are transmitted
by sand with much greater intensity than they are by rock. The
ground under the building and around it was, therefore, an excellent
transmitter of mechanical vibrations, which spread out in all
directions. They may have reached a mile or more. They were more
intense, of course, near their source and became weaker as the
distance increased. However, even weak vibrations that are sustained
can build up surprisingly large effects when they are absorbed
by an object with which they are in resonance. A distant object
in resonance can be thrown into strong vibration whereas a much
nearer object not in resonance will be left unaffected.
It was this selective resonance that was, apparently, operating
in Tesla's experiment. Buildings other than his own came into
resonance with the increasing tempo of his oscillator long before
his own building was affected. After the pandemonium was under
way for some time elsewhere and the higher frequencies were reached,
his immediate surroundings started to come into resonance.
when resonance is reached the effects follow instantly and
powerfully. Tesla knew this, so when he observed dangerous resonance
effects developing in his building he realized he had to act
fast. The oscillator was being operated by compressed air supplied
by a motor-driven compressor that fed the air into a tank, where
it was stored under pressure. Even if the motor were shut off,
there was plenty of air in the tank to keep the oscillator going
for many minutes--and in that time the building could be completely
wrecked and reduced to a pile of debris. with the vibrations
reaching this dangerous amplitude, there was no time to try to
disconnect the vibrator from the air line or to do anything about
releasing the air from the tank. There was time for only one
thing, and Tesla did that. He grabbed the near-by sledge hammer
and took a mighty swing at the oscillator in hopes of putting
it out of operation. He succeeded in his first attempt.
The device was made of cast iron and was of rugged construction.
There were no delicate parts that could be easily damaged. Tesla
has never published a description of the device, but its construction
was principally that of a piston which moved back and forth inside
a cast-iron cylinder. The only way to stop it from operating
was to smash the outer cylinder. Fortunately, that is what happened
from the first blow.
As Tesla turned around after delivering this lucky blow and
beheld the visiting policemen, he could not understand the reason
for their visit. The dangerous vibrations had developed in his
building only within the preceding minute, and the policemen
would not have had time to plan a visit in connection with them,
he figured, so they must have come for some other less critical
purpose, and therefore he proposed to dismiss them until a more
opportune moment.
Tesla related this experience to me when I asked the inventor's
opinion of a plan that I had suggested some time previously to
Elmer Sperry, Jr., son of the famous inventor of many gyroscope
devices. when a heavy gyroscope, such as is used in stabilizing
ships, is forced to turn on its axis, it transmits a powerful
downward thrust through the bearings in which the supporting
gimbal is mounted. If a battery of such gyroscopes were mounted
in regions where severe earthquakes take place it would transmit
thrusts to the ground at equally timed intervals and build up
resonance vibrations in the strata of the earth that would cause
earthquake strains to be released while they were of small magnitude,
thus producing very small earthquakes instead of letting the
strains build up to large magnitudes which, when they let go,
would cause devastating earthquakes.
The idea made a strong appeal to Tesla; and in his discussion,
after telling me of the experience here related, he further declared
that he had so far developed his study of vibrations that he
could establish a new science of "telegeodynamics"
which would deal not only with the transmission of powerful impulses
through the earth to distant points to produce effects of large
magnitude--in addition, he could use the same principles to detect
distant objects. In the later thirties, before the outbreak of
the war, he declared that he could apply these principles for
the detection of submarines or other ships at a distance, even
though they were lying at anchor and no engines operating on
them.
His system of telegeodynamics, using mechanical vibrations,
Tesla declared, would make it possible to determine the physical
constant of the earth and to locate ore deposits far beneath
the surface. This latter prediction has since been fulfilled,
for many oil fields have been discovered by studying the vibrations
reflected from sub-surface strata.
"So powerful are the effects of the telegeodynamic oscillator,"
said Tesla in reviewing the subject in the thirties, "that
I could now go over to the Empire State Building and reduce it
to a tangled mass of wreckage in a very short time. I could accomplish
this result with utmost certainty and without any dificulty whatever.
I would use a small mechanical vibrating device, an engine so
small you could slip it in your pocket. I could attach it to
any part of the building, start it in operation, allow it twelve
to thirteen minutes to come to full resonance. The building would
first respond with gentle tremors, and the vibrations would then
become so powerful that the whole structure would go into resonant
oscillations of such great amplitude and power that rivets in
the steel beams would be loosened and sheared. The outer stone
coating would be thrown off and then the skeleton steel structure
would collapse in all its parts. It would take about 2.5 (This
figure may have been .25 or 2.5 horsepower. The notes are old
and somewhat indistinct. Memory favors the latter figure.) horsepower
to drive the oscillator to produce this effect"
Tesla developed his inventions to the point at which they
were spectacular performers before they were demonstrated to
the public. when presented, the performance always greatly exceeded
the promise. This was the case with his first public demonstration
of "wireless," but he complicated the situation by
coupling with his radio invention another new idea--the robot.
Tesla staged his demonstration in the great auditorium of
Madison Square Garden, then on the north side of Madison Square,
in September, 1898, as part of the first annual Electrical Exhibition.
He had a large tank built in the center of the arena and in this
he placed an iron-hulled boat a few feet long, shaped like an
ark, which he operated by remote control by means of his wireless
system.
Extending upward from the center of the roof of the boat was
a slender metal rod a few feet high which served as an antenna,
or &aerial, for receiving the wireless wave. Near the bow
and stern were two small metal tubes about a foot high surmounted
by small electric lamps. The interior of the hull was packed
with a radio receiving set and a variety of motor-driven mechanisms
which put into effect the operating orders sent to the boat by
wireless waves. There was a motor for propelling the boat and
another motor for operating the servo-mechanism, or mechanical
brain, that interpreted the orders coming from the wireless receiving
set and translated them into mechanical motions, which included
steering the boat in any direction, making it stop, start, go
forward or backward, or light either lamp. The boat could thus
be put through the most complicated maneuvers.
Anyone attending the exhibition could call the maneuver for
the boat, and Tesla, with a few touches on a telegraph key, would
cause the boat to respond. His control point was at the far end
of the great arena.
The demonstration created a sensation and Tesla again was
the popular hero. It was a front-page story in the newspapers.
Everyone knew the accomplishment was a wonderful one, but few
grasped the significance of the event or the importance of the
fundamental discovery which it demonstrated. The basic aspects
of the invention were obscured by the glamor of the demonstration.
The Spanish American war was under way. The success of the
U.S. Navy in destroying the Spanish fleets was the leading topic
of conversation. There was resentment over the blowing up of
the U.S.S. Maine in Havana Harbor. Tesla's demonstration fired
the imagination of everyone because of its possibilities as a
weapon in naval warfare.
waldemar Kaempffert, then a student in City College and now
Science Editor of the New York Times, discussed its use as a
weapon with Tesla.
"I see," said Kaempffert, "how you could load
an even larger boat with a cargo of dynamite, cause it to ride
submerged, and explode the dynamite whenever you wished by pressing
the key just as easily as you can cause the light on the bow
to shine, and blow up from a distance by wireless even the largest
of battleships." (Edison had earlier designed an electric
torpedo which received its power by a cable that remained connected
with the mother ship.)
Tesla was patriotic, and was proud of his status, which he
had acquired in 1889, as a citizen of the United States. He had
offered his invention to the Government as a naval weapon, but
at heart he was opposed to war.
"you do not see there a wireless torpedo," snapped
back Tesla with fire flashing in his eyes, "you see there
the first of a race of robots, mechanical men which will do the
laborious work of the human race.
The "race of robots" was another of Tesla's original
and important contributions to human welfare. It was one of the
items of his colossal project for increasing human energy and
improving the efficiency of its utilization. He visualized the
application of the robot idea to warfare as well as to peaceful
pursuits; and out of the broad principles enunciated, he developed
an accurate picture of warfare as it is being carried on today
with the use of giant machines as weapons--the robots he described.
"This evolution," he stated in an article in the
Century Magazine of June, 1900, "will bring more and more
into prominence a machine or mechanism with the fewest individuals
as an element of warfare. . . . Greatest possible speed and maximum
rate of energy delivery by the war apparatus will be the main
object. The loss of life will become smaller. . . ."
Outlining the experiences that led him to design the robots,
or automatons, as he called them, Tesla stated:
I have by every thought and act of mine, demonstrated, and
do so daily, to my absolute satisfaction that I am an automaton
endowed with power of movement, which merely responds to external
stimuli beating upon my sense organs, and thinks and moves accordingly.
. . .
with these experiences it was only natural that, long ago,
I conceived the idea of constructing an automaton which would
mechanically represent me, and which would respond, as I do myself,
but, of course, in a much more primitive manner, to external
influences. Such an automaton evidently had to have motive power,
organs for locomotion, directive organs, and one or more sensitive
organs so adapted as to be excited by external stimuli.
This machine would, I reasoned, perform its movements in the
manner of a living being, for it would have all of the chief
elements of the same. There was still the capacity for growth,
propagation, and, above all, the mind which would be wanting
to make the model complete. But growth was not necessary in this
case since a machine could be manufactured full-grown, so to
speak. As to capacity for propagation, it could likewise be left
out of consideration, for in the mechanical model it merely signified
a process of manufacture.
whether the automaton be of flesh and bone, or of wood and
steel, mattered little, provided it could perform all the duties
required of it like an intelligent being. To do so it would have
to have an element corresponding to the mind, which would effect
the control of its movements and operations, and cause it to
act, in any unforeseen case that might present itself, with knowledge,
reason, judgement and experience. But this element I could easily
embody in it by conveying to it my own intelligence, my own understanding.
So this invention was evolved, and so a new art came into existence,
for which the name "telautomatics" has been suggested,
which means the art of controlling the movements and operations
of distant automatons.
In order to give the automaton an individual identity it would
be provided with a particular electrical tuning, Tesla explained,
to which it alone would respond when waves of that particular
frequency were sent from a control transmitting station; and
other automatons would remain inactive until their frequency
was transmitted. This was Tesla's fundamental radio tuning invention,
the need for which other radio inventors had not yet glimpsed
although Tesla had described it publicly a half-dozen years earlier.
Tesla not only used in the control of his automaton the long
waves now used in broadcasting--which are very different from
the short waves used by Marconi and all others; for those could
be interfered with by the imposition of an intervening object--but
he was explaining the use, through his system of tuning, of the
spectrum of allocations for individual stations that now appears
on the dials of radio receiving sets. He continued:
By the simple means described the knowledge, experience, judgement--the
mind, so to speak--of the distant operator were embodied in that
machine, which was thus enabled to move and perform all of its
operations with reason and intelligence. It behaved just like
a blindfolded person obeying directions received through the
ear.
The automatons so far constructed had "borrowed minds,"
so to speak, as each formed merely part of the distant operator
who conveyed to it his intelligent orders; but this art is only
in the beginning.
I purpose to show that, however impossible it may now seem,
an automaton may be contrived which will have its "own mind,"
and by this I mean that it will be able, independently of any
operator, left entirely to itself, to perform, in response to
external influences affecting its sensitive organs, a great variety
of acts and operations as if it had intelligence.
It will be able to follow a course laid out or to obey orders
given far in advance; it will be capable of distinguishing between
what it ought and ought not to do, and of making experiences
or, otherwise stated, of recording impressions which will deffinitely
affect its subsequent actions. In fact I have already conceived
such a plan.
Although I evolved this invention many years ago and explained
it to my visitors very frequently in my laboratory demonstrations,
it was not until much later, long after I had perfected it, that
it became known, when, naturally enough, it gave rise to much
discussion and to sensational reports.
But the true significance of this new art was not grasped
by the majority, nor was the great force of the underlying principle
recognized. As nearly as I could judge from the numerous comments
which then appeared, the results I had obtained were considered
as entirely impossible. Even the few who were disposed to admit
the practicability of the invention saw in it merely an automobile
torpedo, which was to be used for the purpose of blowing up battleships,
with doubtful success. . . .
But the art I have evolved does not contemplate merely the
change of direction of a moving vessel; it affords means of absolutely
controlling in every respect, all the innumerable translatory
movements, as well as the operations of all the internal organs,
no matter how many, of an individualized automaton.
Tesla, in an unpublished statement, prepared fifteen years
later, recorded his experience in developing automata, and his
unsuccessful effort to interest the war Department, and likewise
commercial concerns, in his wirelessly controlled devices.
The idea of constructing an automaton, to bear out my theory,
presented itself to me early but I did not begin active work
until 1893, when I started my wireless investigations. During
the succeeding two or three years, a number of automatic mechanisms,
actuated from a distance by wireless control, were constructed
by me and exhibited to visitors in my laboratory.
In 1896, however, I designed a complete machine capable of
a multitude of operations, but the consummation of my labors
was delayed until later in 1897. This machine was illustrated
and described in my article in the Century Magazine of June 1900,
and other periodicals of that time and, when first shown in the
beginning of 1898, it created a sensation such as no other invention
of mine has ever produced.
In November 1898, a basic patent on the novel art was granted
to me, but only after the Examiner-in-Chief had come to New York
and witnessed the performance, for what I claimed seemed unbelievable.
I remember that when later I called on an oficial in Washington,
with a view of offering the invention to the Government, he burst
out in laughter upon my telling him what I had accomplished.
Nobody thought then that there was the faintest prospect of perfecting
such a device.
It is unfortunate that in this patent, following the advice
of my attorneys, I indicated the control as being effected through
the medium of a single circuit and a well-known form of detector,
for the reason that I had not yet secured protection on my methods
and apparatus for individualization. As a matter of fact, my
boats were controlled through the joint action of several circuits
and interference of every kind was excluded. Most generally I
employed receiving circuits in the form of loops, including condensers,
because the discharges of my high tension transmitter ionized
the air in the hall so that even a very small &aerial would
draw electricity from the surrounding atmosphere for hours.
Just to give an idea, I found, for instance, that a bulb 12"
in diamater, highly exhausted, and with one single terminal to
which a short wire was attached, would deliver well on to one
thousand successive flashes before all charge of the air in the
laboratory was neutralized. The loop form of receiver was not
sensitive to such a disturbance and it is curious to note that
it is becoming popular at this late date. In reality it collects
much less energy than the aerials or a long grounded wire, but
it so happens that it does away with a number of defects inherent
to the present wireless devices.
In demonstrating my invention before audiences, the visitors
were requested to ask any questions, however involved, and the
automaton could answer them by signs. This was considered magic
at that time but was extremely simple, for it was myself who
gave the replies by means of the device.
At the same period another larger telautomatic boat was constructed.
It was controlled by loops having several turns placed in the
hull, which was made entirely water tight and capable of submergence.
The apparatus was similar to that used in the first with the
exception of certain special features I introduced as, for example,
incandescent lamps which afforded a visible evidence of the proper
functioning of the machine and served for other purposes.
These automata, controlled within the range of vision of the
operator, were, however, the first and rather crude steps in
the evolution of the Art of Telautomatics as I had conceived
it. The next logical improvement was its application to automatic
mechanisms beyond the limits of vision and at great distances
from the center of control, and I have ever since advocated their
employments as instruments of warfare in preference to guns.
The importance of this now seems to be recognized, if I am to
judge from casual announcements through the press of achievements
which are said to be extraordinary but contain no merit of novelty
whatever.
In an imperfect manner it is practicable, with the existing
wireless plants, to launch an aeroplane, have it follow a certain
approximate course, and perform some operation at a distance
of many hundreds of miles. A machine of this kind can also be
mechanically controlled in several ways and I have no doubt that
it may prove of some usefulness in war. But there are, to my
best knowledge, no instrumentalities in existence today with
which such an object could be accomplished in a precise manner.
I have devoted years of study to this matter and have evolved
means, making such and greater wonders easily realizable.
As stated on a previous occasion, when I was a student at
college I conceived a flying machine quite unlike the present
ones. The underlying principle was sound but could not be carried
into practice for want of a prime-mover of suficiently great
activity. In recent years I have successfully solved this problem
and am now planning aerial machines devoid of sustaining planes,
ailerons, propellers and other external attachments, which will
be capable of immense speeds and are very likely to furnish powerful
arguments for peace in the near future. Such a machine, sustained
and propelled entirely by reaction, can be controlled either
mechanically or by wireless energy. By installing proper plants
it will be practicable to project a missile of this kind into
the air and drop it almost on the very spot designated which
may be thousands of miles away. But we are not going to stop
at this.
Tesla is here describing--nearly fifty years ago--the radio-controlled
rocket, which is still a confidential development of world war
II, and the rocket bombs used by the Germans to attack England.
The rocket-type airship is a secret which probably died with
Tesla, unless it is contained in his papers sealed by the Government
at the time of his death. This, however, is unlikely, as Tesla,
in order to protect his secrets, did not commit his major inventions
to paper, but depended on an almost infallible memory for their
preservation.
"Telautomata," he concluded, "will be ultimately
produced, capable of acting as if possessed of their own intelligence
and their advent will create a revolution. As early as 1898 I
proposed to representatives of a large manufacturing concern
the construction and public exhibition of an automobile carriage
which, left to itself, would perform a great variety of operations
involving something akin to judgment. But my proposal was deemed
chimerical at that time and nothing came from it."
Tesla, at the Madison Square Garden demonstration in 1898
which lasted for a week, presented to the world, then, two stupendous
developments, either of which alone would have been too gigantic
to have been satisfactorily assimilated by the public in a single
presentation. Either one of the ideas dimmed the glory of the
other.
This first public demonstration of wireless, the forerunner
of modern radio, in the amazing stage of development to which
Tesla carried it, at this early date, was too tremendous a project
to be encompassed within a single dramatization. In the hands
of a competent public-relations councillor, or publicity man,
as he was called in those days (but the employment of one was
utterly abhorrent to Tesla), this demonstration would have been
limited to the wireless aspect alone, and would have included
just a simple two-way sending-and-receiving set for the transmission
of messages by the Morse dots and dashes. Suitably dramatized,
this would have been a suficient thrill for one show. At a subsequent
show he could have brought in the tuning demonstration which
would have shown the selective response of each of a series of
coils, indicated by his strange-looking vacuum-tube lamps. The
whole story of just the tuning of wireless circuits and stations
to each other was too big for any one demonstration. An indication
of its possibilities was all the public could absorb.
The robot, or automaton, idea was a new and an equally stupendous
concept, the possibilities of which were not lost, however, on
clever inventors; for it brought in the era of the modern labor-saving
device--the mechanization of industry on a mass-production basis.
Using the Tesla principles, John Hays Hammond, Jr. developed
an electric dog, on wheels, that followed him like a live pup.
It was motor operated and controlled by a light beam through
selenium cells placed behind lenses used for eyes. He also operated
a yacht, entirely without a crew, which was sent out to sea from
Boston harbor and brought back to its wharf by wireless control.
A manless airplane was developed toward the close of the First
world war. It rose from the ground, flew one hundred miles to
a selected target, dropped its bombs, and returned to its home
airport, all by wireless control. It was also developed so that
on a signal from a distant radio station the plane would rise
into the air, choose the proper direction, fly to a city hundreds
of miles away and set itself down in the airport at that city.
This Tesla-type robot was developed in the plant of the Sperry
Gyroscope Company, where Elmer Sperry invented a host of amazing
mechanical robots controlled by gyroscopes, such as the automatic
pilots for airplanes and for ships.
All of the modern control devices using electronic tubes and
electric eyes that make machines seem almost human and enable
them to perform with superhuman activity, dependability, accuracy
and low cost, are children of Tesla's robot, or automaton. The
most recent development, in personalized form, was the mechanical
man, a metal human monster giant, that walked, talked, smoked
a cigarette, and obeyed spoken orders, in the exhibit of the
Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company at the New York
world's Fair. Robots have been used, as well, to operate hydroelectric
powerhouses and isolated substations of powerhouses.
In presenting this superabundance of scientific discovery
in a single demonstration, Tesla was manifesting the superman
in an additional role that pleased him greatly--that of the man
magnificent. He would astound the world with a superlative demonstration
not only of the profundity of the accomplishments of the superman,
but, in addition, of the prolific nature of the mind of the man
magnificent who could shower on the world a superabundance of
scientific discoveries.
ELEVEN
TESLA was now ready for new worlds to conquer. After presenting
to the public his discoveries relating to wireless signaling
or the transmission of intelligence, as he called it, Tesla was
anxious to get busy on the power phase: his projected world-wide
distribution of power by wireless methods.
Again Tesla was faced with a financial problem or, to state
the matter simply, he was broke. The $40,000 which was paid for
the stock of the Nikola Tesla Company by Adams had been spent.
The company had no cash on hand; but it held patents worth many
millions if they had been handled in a practical way. A gift
of $10,000 from John Hays Hammond, the famous mining engineer,
had financed the work leading up to the Madison Square Garden
wireless and robot demonstration.
Tesla had built ever larger and more powerful oscillators
in his Houston Street laboratory. when he constructed one that
produced 4,000,000 volts he reached beyond the limits in which
high voltage could be handled within a city building. The sparks
jumped to the walls, floors and ceilings. He needed a larger
open space. He wanted to build vastly larger coils. He dreamed
of a tremendous structure he would like to build somewhere in
the open country spaces. He felt certain his wireless patents
would prove tremendously valuable in a short time, and he would
then have all the money he needed to build his laboratory. But
he had already progressed to the point at which further advancement
demanded the use of such a building--and he was broke. A loan
of $10,000 offered by his friend Crawford, of the dry goods firm
of Simpson and Crawford, took care of immediate needs.
Leonard E. Curtis, of the Colorado Springs Electric Company,
a great admirer of Tesla, when he heard of Tesla's plan to conduct
experiments on a gigantic scale, invited him to locate his laboratory
at Colorado Springs, where he would provide him with the necessary
land and all the electric power he needed for his work.
Col. John Jacob Astor, owner of the waldorf-Astoria, held
his famous dining-room guest in the highest esteem as a personal
friend, and kept in close touch with the progress of his investigations.
when he heard that his researches were being halted through lack
of funds, he made available to Tesla the $30,000 he needed in
order to take advantage of Curtis' offer and build a temporary
plant at Colorado Springs. Tesla arrived in Colorado in May,
1899, bringing with him some of his laboratory workers, and accompanied
by an engineering associate, Fritz Lowenstein.
while Tesla was making experiments on natural lightning and
other subjects in his mountain laboratory, the construction work
on his high-power transmitting apparatus was being rushed. He
gave his personal supervision to even the finest details of every
piece of apparatus. He was working in a virgin field. None had
gone before him to pave the way or gain experience that would
be helpful to him in designing his experiments or his machines.
He was entirely on his own, working without human guidance of
any kind, exploring a field of knowledge far beyond that which
anyone else had reached. He had previously astonished the world
in developing a system of power transmission in which pressures
of tens of thousands of volts were used; now he was working with
millions of volts, and no one knew what would happen when such
tremendous potentials were produced. He believed, however, that
he would make his own magnificent polyphase system obsolete by
creating a better one.
In about three months after his arrival at Colorado Springs
the building with its fantastic shapes, towers and masts was
completed, and the giant oscillator with which the principal
experiment was to be made was ready for operation.
The wild, rugged, mountainous terrain of Colorado, in which
Tesla set up his laboratory, is a natural generator of tremendous
electrical activity, producing lightning discharges of a magnitude
and intensity probably not equaled anywhere else on earth. Overwhelming
bolts from both earth and sky flashed with frightening frequency
during the almost daily lightning storms. Tesla made a very detailed
study of natural lightning while his apparatus, which would imitate
it, was being constructed. He learned a great deal about the
characteristics of the various kinds of discharges.
The gods of the natural lightning may have become a bit jealous
of this individual who was undertaking to steal their thunder,
as Prometheus had stolen fire, and sought to punish him by wrecking
his fantastic looking structure. It was badly damaged, and narrowly
escaped destruction, by a bolt of lightning, not one that made
a direct hit but one that struck ten miles away.
The blast hit the laboratory at the exact time, to the split
second, that Tesla predicted it would. It was caused by a tidal
wave of air coming from a particular type of lightning discharge.
Tesla tells the story in an unpublished report. He stated:
I have had many opportunities for checking this value by observation
of explosions and lightning discharges. An ideal case of this
kind presented itself at Colorado Springs in July 1899 while
I was carrying on tests with my broadcasting power station which
was the only wireless plant in existence at that time.
A heavy cloud had gathered over Pikes Peak range and suddenly
lightning struck at a point just ten miles away. I timed the
flash instantly and upon making a quick computation told my assistants
that the tidal wave would arrive in 48.5 seconds. Exactly with
the lapse of this time interval a terrific blow struck the building
which might have been thrown off the foundation had it not been
strongly braced. All the windows on one side and a door were
demolished and much damage done in the interior.
Taking into account the energy of the electric discharge and
its duration, as well as that of an explosion, I estimated that
the concussion was about equivalent to that which might have
been produced at that distance by the ignition of twelve tons
of dynamite.
The experimental station which Tesla erected was an almost
square barnlike structure nearly one hundred feet on each side.
The sides were twenty-five feet high, and from them the roof
sloped upward toward the center. From the middle of the roof
rose a skeleton pyramidal tower made of wood. The top of this
tower was nearly eighty feet above the ground. Extensions of
the slanting roof beams extended outward to the ground to serve
as flying buttresses to reinforce the tower. Through the center
of the tower extended a mast nearly two hundred feet high, at
the top of which was mounted a copper ball about three feet in
diameter. The mast carried a heavy wire connecting the ball with
the apparatus in the laboratory. The mast was arranged in sections
so that it could be disjointed and lowered.
There were many pieces of apparatus in the building, and many
forms and sizes of his Tesla coils, or high-frequency current
transformers. The principal device was his "magnifying transmitter."
This was merely a very large Tesla coil. A circular fence-like
wall seventy-five feet in diameter was built in the large central
room of the structure, and on this were wound the turns of the
giant primary coil of the magnifying transmitter. The secondary
was a coil about ten feet in diameter, of about seventy-five
turns of wire wound on a cylindrical skeletonized framework of
wood. It had a vertical length of about ten feet and was mounted
in the center of the room several feet above the floor. In the
center of this coil was the bottom part of the mast. The roof
above this portion of the room could be slid outward in two sections,
so that no material came within a long distance of the mast and
its wire conductor within the lower third of the distance above
the ground.
One of the first problems Tesla sought to solve when he began
his researches in the mountains of Colorado was whether the earth
was an electrically charged body. Nature is usually very generous
in her response when scientists ask her, in their experiments,
questions of first magnitude. Tesla not only received a very
satisfactory answer to his question but in addition a revelation
of tremendous importance, an unveiling of a secret of Nature's
operations which places in the hands of man a means of manipulating
electrical forces on a terrestrial scale.
It was desirable for Tesla to learn whether the earth was
electrically charged for the same reason that a violinist would
want to know whether the strings of his instrument lay loose
and inert across the bridge or whether they were tense and taut
so that they would produce a musical note if plucked, or a football
player would want to know if the pigskin were inflated or limp.
If the earth were uncharged, it would act as a vast sink into
which electricity would have to be flowed in tremendous amounts
to bring it to the state in which it could be made to vibrate
electrically. An uncharged earth would somewhat complicate Tesla's
plans. He quickly discovered that the earth is charged to an
extremely high potential and is provided with some kind of a
mechanism for maintaining its voltage. It was while determining
this fact that he made his second big discovery.
Tesla made the first announcement of his discovery shortly
after his return to New York in an amazing article in the Century
of June, 1900, but the story is best told by Tesla in an article
in the Electrical world and Engineer, May 5, 1904:
In the middle of June, while preparations for other work were
going on, I arranged one of my receiving transformers with the
view of determining in a novel manner, experimentally, the electrical
potential of the globe and studying its periodic and casual fluctuations.
This formed part of a plan carefully mapped out in advance
A highly sensitive, self restorative device, controlling a
recording instrument, was included in the secondary circuit,
while the primary was connected to the ground and the secondary
to an elevated terminal of adjustable capacity. The variations
of electrical potential gave rise to electrical surgings in the
primary; these generated secondary currents, which in turn affected
the sensitive device and recorder in proportion to their intensity.
The earth was found to be, literally, alive with electrical
vibrations, and soon I was deeply absorbed in this interesting
investigation. No better opportunity for such observations as
I intended to make could be found anywhere.
Colorado is a country famous for the natural displays of electric
force. In that dry and rarefied atmosphere the sun's rays beat
on objects with fierce intensity. I raised steam to a dangerous
pressure, in barrels filled with concentrated salt solution and
the tinfoil coating of some of my elevated terminals shrivelled
in the fiery blaze. An experimental high tension transformer,
carelessly exposed to the rays of the setting sun, had most of
its insulating compound melted and was rendered useless.
Aided by the dryness and rarefaction of the air, the water
evaporates as in a boiler, and static electricity is generated
in abundance. Lightning discharges are, accordingly, very frequent
and sometimes of inconceivable violence. On one occasion approximately
12,000 discharges occurred within two hours, and all in the radius
of certainly less than 50 kilometers [about 30 miles] from the
laboratory. Many of them resembled gigantic trees of fire with
the trunks up or down. I never saw fireballs, but as a compensation
for my disappointment I succeeded later in determining the mode
of their formation and producing them artificially.
In the latter part of the same month I noticed several times
that my instruments were affected stronger by discharges taking
place at great distances than by those near by. This puzzled
me very much. what was the cause? A number of observations proved
that it could not be due to differences in the intensity of individual
discharges and I readily ascertained that the phenomenon was
not the result of a varying relation between the periods of my
receiving circuits and those of the terrestrial disturbances.
One night as I was walking home with an assistant, meditating
over these experiences, I was suddenly staggered by a thought.
Years ago when I wrote a chapter of my lecture before the Franklin
Institute and the National Electric Light Association, it had
presented itself to me, but I dismissed it as absurd and impossible.
I banished it again. Nevertheless, my instinct was aroused and
somehow I felt that I was nearing a great revelation.
It was on the 3rd of July [1899]--the date I shall never forget--when
I obtained the first decisive experimental evidence of a truth
of overwhelming importance for the advancement of humanity.
A dense mass of strongly charged clouds gathered in the west
and toward evening a violent storm broke loose which, after spending
much of its fury in the mountains, was driven away with great
velocity over the plains. Heavy and long persistent arcs formed
almost in regular time intervals. My observations were now greatly
facilitated and rendered more accurate by the experiences already
gained. I was able to handle my instruments quickly and I was
prepared. The recording apparatus being properly adjusted, its
indications became fainter and fainter with increasing distance
of the storm, until they ceased altogether.
I was watching in eager expectation. Surely enough, in a little
while the indications again began, grew stronger and stronger,
and, after passing through a maximum, gradually decreased and
ceased once more. Many times, in regularly recurring intervals,
the same actions were repeated until the storm which, as evident
from simple computations, was moving with nearly constant speed,
had retreated to a distance of about 300 kilometers [about 180
miles]. Nor did these strange actions stop then, but continued
to manifest themselves with undiminished force.
Subsequently similar observations were also made by my assistant,
Mr. Fritz Lowenstein, and shortly afterward several admirable
opportunities presented themselves which brought out, still more
forcibly and unmistakably, the true nature of the wonderful phenomenon.
No doubt whatever remained: I was observing stationary waves.
As the source of the disturbances moved away the receiving
circuit came successively upon their nodes and loops. Impossible
as it seemed, this planet, despite its vast extent, behaved like
a conductor of limited dimensions. The tremendous significance
of this fact in the transmission of energy by my system had already
become quite clear to me.
Not only was it practicable to send telegraphic messages to
any distance without wires, as I recognized long ago, but also
to impress upon the entire globe the faint modulations of the
human voice, far more still, to transmit power, in unlimited
amounts to any terrestrial distance and almost without loss.
To get a more familiar picture of the problem that Tesla tackled
in seeking to determine if the earth were charged and if it could
be set into electrical vibration, one can visualize the difference
between a bath tub that is empty and one that contains water.
The uncharged earth would be like an empty tub; the charged earth
like one containing water. It is easy to produce waves in the
tub containing the water. By placing one's hand in the water
and moving it back and forth, lengthwise, a short distance at
the right rhythm, the water is soon rushing back and forth in
a wave whose amplitude grows at a tremendously rapid rate until,
if the hand motion is continued, the water may splash as high
as the ceiling.
The earth can be visualized as an extremely large container
holding a fluid; and in the center is a small plunger arrangement
which can be moved tip and down a short distance in the proper
rhythm. The waves travel to the edge of the container and are
reflected back to the center, from which they again go outward
re-enforced by the movement of the plunger.
The reaction between the outgoing and incoming waves, both
in resonance with the medium in which they are traveling, causes
stationary waves to be produced on the water, the surface having
the appearance of a single series of waves frozen in a fixed
position.
In Tesla's experiments the lightning discharges that played
the part of the plunger causing the waves were moving rapidly
to the eastward, and they carried the whole series of fixed,
or stationary, waves with them. The measuring device remained
fixed so the wave series, with its loops and nodes, moved past
it, causing the measured potentials to rise and fall.
The experiment not only demonstrated that the earth was filled
with electricity, but that this electricity could be disturbed
so that rhythmic vibrations could be struck, resonance could
be produced, causing effects of tremendous magnitude. Soldiers
marching in unison across a bridge and wrecking it by the resulting
vibration would again be a case in point.
Tesla produced the spectacular effects of extremely high potentials
and high frequency by producing electrical resonance in his circuits--by
tuning the electricity--and now he had discovered that he would
be able to produce, easily, the same effect in the earth as if
it were a single condenser and coil combined, a pure electrical
resonating unit, by charging and discharging it rhythmically
with his high-frequency, high-potential oscillations.
In this magnificent experiment Tesla the superman was at his
best; the boldness of his undertaking fired the imagination,
and the success he achieved should have earned for him undying
fame.
Eventually, the giant coils with their banks of condensers
and other apparatus in, the Colorado laboratory were ready for
use in full-scale experiments. Every piece of equipment was thoroughly
inspected and tested by Tesla and the moment had finally arrived
for the critical test of the highest voltage experiment that
had ever been made. He expected to top his own earlier records
one hundred times over, and to produce tens of thousands of times
higher voltages than ever had been produced in the high-voltage
transmission lines at Niagara Falls.
There was not the faintest shadow of doubt in Tesla's mind
as to whether his giant oscillator would work. He knew it would
work, but he also knew that he was going to produce millions
of volts and tremendously heavy currents; and neither he nor
anyone else knew how these terrific explosions of electrical
energy would act. He knew that he had planned the experiment
so that the first bolts of man-made lightning ever created would
shoot from the top of the 200-foot-tall mast.
Tesla asked Kolman Czito, who had worked with him for many
years in his laboratories in New York, to preside at the switch-board
through which current was brought into the laboratory from the
powerhouse of the Colorado Springs Electric Company by an overhead
transmission line two miles long.
"when I give you the word," said Tesla to Czito,
"you close the switch for one second--not longer."
The inventor took a position near the door of the laboratory
from which he could view the giant coil in the center of the
great barnlike room--but not too close to it, for a stray bolt
of his own lightning might inflict a painful burn. From the point
where he stood he could look upward toward the open roof and
see the three-foot copper ball on top of the slender 200-foot
mast that had its base in the center of the cagelike secondary
coil. A quick visual survey of the situation, and Tesla gave
the signal--"Now."
Czito jammed home the switch and as quickly pulled it out.
In that brief interval the secondary coil was crowned with a
mass of hairlike electrical fire, there was a crackling sound
in various parts of the room and a sharp snap far overhead.
"Fine," said Tesla, "the experiment is working
beautifully. we will try it again in exactly the same way. Now!"
Again Czito jammed home the switch for a second and opened
it. Again the plumes of electrical fire came from the coil, minor
sparks crackled in all parts of the laboratory and the very sharp
snap came through the open roof from far overhead.
"This time," said Tesla, "I am going to watch
the top of the mast from the outside. when I give you the signal
I want you to close the switch and leave it closed until I give
you the signal to open it." So saying, he started for the
near-by open door.
Reaching a point outside from which he could see the copper
ball on top of the needlelike mast, Tesla called through the
door, "Czito, close the switch--Now!"
Czito again jammed the switch closed and jumped back--but
held his arm extended to yank open the blades quickly should
he receive an emergency signal. Nothing much had happened on
the quick-contact closing, but now the apparatus would be given
an opportunity to build up its full strength and no one knew
what to expect. He knew that the apparatus would draw a very
heavy current through a primary coil that looked like a "short
circuit," and he knew that short circuits could be very
destructive if the current was allowed to continue to flow. The
switchboard could become a scene of interesting activity if any
thing let go. Czito expected the quick flash and explosive blast
of a short circuit a second or two after the switch was closed.
Several seconds passed with no short circuit.
As soon as the switch was closed there came again the same
crackling sound, the same snap high in the air that he had heard
before. Now it was followed by a tremendous upsurge of sound.
The crackling from the coil swelled into a crescendo of vicious
snaps. From above the roof the original staccato snap was followed
by a sharper one--and by another that was like the report of
a rifle. The next was still louder. They came closer together
like the rattle of a machine gun. The bang high in the air became
tremendously louder; it was now the roar of a cannon, with the
discharges rapidly following each other as if a gigantic artillery
battle was taking place over the building. The sound was terrifying
and the thunder shook the building in most threatening fashion.
There was a strange ghostly blue light in the great barnlike
structure. The coils were flaming with masses of fiery hair.
Everything in the building was spouting needles of flame, and
the place filled with the sulphurous odor of ozone, fumes of
the sparks, which was all that was needed to complete the conviction
that hell was breaking loose and belching into the building.
As Czito stood near the switch he could feel and see the sparks
jump from his fingers, each pricking like a needle stuck into
his flesh. He wondered if he would be able to reach for the switch
and turn off the power that was creating this electrical pandemonium--would
the sparks become longer and more powerful if he approached the
switch? Must this head-splitting racket go on forever? It's getting
worse, that tremendous ear-wrecking bang, bang, bang overhead.
why doesn't Tesla stop it before it shakes down the building?
Should he open the switch of his own accord? Maybe Tesla has
been hit, perhaps killed, and can't give orders to open the switch!
It seemed to Czito that the demonstration had been going on
for an hour but as a matter of fact it had lasted thus far for
only a minute; nevertheless, a tremendous amount of activity
had been crowded into that short space of time.
Outside stood Tesla, properly attired in cutaway coat and
black derby hat for the auspicious occasion, his slender six-foot-two
figure bearing signs of close relationship to the mastlike rod
sticking out of his bizarre barnlike structure. His height was
increased by a one-inch-thick layer of rubber on the soles and
heels of his shoes, used as electrical insulation.
As he gave the switch-closing "Now" signal to Czito,
he turned his eyes heavenward to the ball on top of the mast.
He had hardly spoken when he saw a short hairlike spark dart
from the ball. It was only about ten feet long, and thin. Before
he had time to be pleased, there was a second and a third and
a fourth spark, each longer, brighter and bluer than its predecessor.
"Ah!" ejaculated Tesla, forgetting to close his
mouth that was widely opened for a shout. He clenched his hands
for joy and raised them skyward toward the top of the mast.
More sparks! Longer and longer! Ten, twenty, thirty, forty,
fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty feet. Brighter and bluer! Not thread-like
sparks now but fingers of fire. Wriggling rods of flame that
lashed viciously into the heavens. The sparks were now as thick
as his arm as they left the ball.
Tesla's eyes almost popped out of his head as he saw full-fledged
bolts of lightning darting into the air, accompanied by a barrage
of tremendous crashes of thunder. Those lightning bolts were
now half again the length of the building, more than 135 feet
long, and the thunder was being heard in Cripple Creek fifteen
miles away.
Suddenly--silence!
Tesla rushed into the building.
"Czito! Czito! Czito! why did you do that? I did not
tell you to open the switch. Close it again quickly!"
Czito pointed at the switch. It was still closed. He then
pointed at the voltmeter and ammeter on the switchboard. The
needles of both of them registered zero.
Tesla sized up the situation instantly. The incoming wires
carrying power to the laboratory were "dead."
"Czito," he snapped, "call up the powerhouse
quickly. They must not do that. They have cut off my power".
The telephone call was put through to the powerhouse. Tesla
grabbed the phone and shouted into it:
"This is Nikola Tesla. you have cut off my power! you
must give me back power immediately! you must not cut off my
power."
"Cut off your power, nothing," came the gruff reply
from the other end of the line. "you've thrown a short circuit
on our line with your blankety-blank-blank experiments and wrecked
our station. you've knocked our generator off the line and she's
now on fire. you won't get any more power!"
Tesla had built his apparatus substantially, so that it would
be able to carry the tremendously heavy currents he expected
to draw off the line. while his own equipment was able to stand
what amounted to a heavy short circuit, he had overloaded the
generator at the Colorado Springs Electric Company powerhouse,
which tried manfully to carry the added burden--but the heavy
surge of current was too much for the dynamo that was not designed
to stand such heavy overloads. Its wires became hotter and hotter,
and finally the insulation took fire and the copper wire in the
armature coils melted like wax, opening its circuits so that
it ceased to generate electricity.
The powerhouse had a second, standby, generator which was
started up in a short time. Tesla was insistent that he be supplied
with current from this machine as soon as it was running, but
his demand was refused. In the future, he was told, he would
be supplied with current from a dynamo operated independently
from the one supplying the Company's regular customers. The independent
dynamo, he was told, would be the one that was already burned
out--and he would get no service until it was repaired. Tesla
offered to pay the cost of an extra-special rush job on the repairs
if he were permitted to handle the work. Alternating-current
dynamos were no mystery to him. Taking his workers from the laboratory
to the powerhouse he soon had the repair job under way, and in
less than a week the dynamo was again operating.
A lightning stroke produces its spectacular pyrotechnics and
earthvibrating effects with less than a nickel's worth of electricity--at
a five-cent-a-kilowatt hour rate, which is somewhat less than
the average household rate for current. It consists of tremendously
heavy currents, many thousands of amperes at millions of volts,
but it lasts only a few millionths of a second. If supplied with
this "nickel's worth" of current continuously, the
lightning flash would last indefinitely.
Tesla, in his Colorado Springs laboratory, was pumping a steady
flow of current worth, at the above rate, about $15.00 an hour
into the earth. In an hour he charged the earth with several
hundred times as much electrical energy as is contained in a
single lightning stroke. Owing to resonance phenomena, he could
build up electrical effects in the earth greatly exceeding those
of lightning since it was only necessary, once resonance was
established, to supply energy equal to frictional losses, in
order to maintain this condition.
In describing his work with the giant oscillator, Tesla, using
conservative estimates of his results, stated in his article
in the Century Magazine of June, 1900:
However extraordinary the results shown may appear, they are
but trifling compared with those attainable by apparatus designed
on these same principles. I have produced electrical discharges
the actual path of which, from end to end, was probably more
than 100 feet long; but it would not be dificult to reach lengths
100 times as great.
I have produced electrical movements occurring at the rate
of approximately 100,000 horsepower, but rates of one, five or
ten million horsepower are easily practicable. In these experiments
effects were developed incomparably greater than ever produced
by any human agencies, and yet these results are but an embryo
of what is to be.
The method used by Tesla to set the earth in electrical oscillation
is the electrical counterpart of the mechanical device previously
described, the plunger bobbing up and down at the right rhythm
that created the stationary waves in the water.
Tesla used a stream of electrons which were pumped into and
drawn out of the earth at a rapid rhythmic rate. At the time
the experiments were made, the electron still was not known to
be the fundamental atom of electricity, so the operation was
spoken of simply as the flow of electricity.
The pumping operation was carried on at a rate of 150,000
oscillations per second. These would produce electrical pulsations
with a wavelength of 2,000 meters (about 6,600 feet).
when the moving waves expanded outward from Colorado Springs,
they traveled in all directions in ever increasing circles until
they passed over the bulge of the earth, and then in ever smaller
circles and with increasing intensity converged on the diametrically
opposite point of the earth, a trifle to the west of the two
French Islands, Amsterdam and St. Paul, in the area between the
Indian and Antarctic Oceans midway between the southern tip of
Africa and the southwest corner of Australia. Here a tremendous
electrical south pole was built up, marked by a wave of great
amplitude that rose and fell in unison with Tesla's apparatus
at its north pole in Colorado Springs. As this wave fell, it
sent back an electrical echo which produced the same effect at
Colorado Springs. Just as it arrived back at Colorado Springs,
the oscillator was working to build up a wave that would re-enforce
it and send it back more powerfully than before to the antipode
to repeat the performance.
If there were no losses in this operation--if the earth were
a perfect electrical conductor, and there were no other sources
of resistance--this resonance phenomenon would build up to a
destructive action of gigantic proportions, even with the charging
source of only about 300 horsepower which Tesla used. Voltages
of gigantic magnitudes would be built up. Charged particles of
matter would be hurled outward from the earth with vast energies,
and eventually even the solid matter of the earth would be affected
and the whole planet disintegrated. Pure resonance, however,
is not attainable. Tesla frequently stressed the fortunate nature
of this fact; for otherwise disastrous results could be produced
by small amounts of energy. The electrical resistance of the
globe would prevent the attainment of pure resonance; but practical
resonance can be attained with safety by supplying continuously
the amount of energy lost in resistance--and this supplies perfect
control of the situation.
with the earth set in electrical oscillation, a source of
energy is provided at all spots on the earth. This could be drawn
off and made available for use by a suitable simple apparatus
which would contain the same elements as the tuning unit in a
radio set, but larger (a coil and a condenser), a ground connection
and metal rod as high as a cottage. Such a combination would
absorb, at any point on the earth's surface, energy from the
waves rushing back and forth between the electrical north and
south poles created by the Tesla oscillators. No other equipment
would be needed to supply light to the home, provided with Tesla's
simple vacuum-tube lamps, or to produce heating effects. (For
the operation of ordinary-type motors, a frequency changer would
be needed. Tesla, indeed, developed ironless motors that would
operate on high-frequency currents, but they could not compete
in efficiency with motors operated on low-frequency currents.
Frequency transformation, however, is now a very practical operation.)
The apparatus that Tesla used to charge the earth is very
simple in principle. In its elementary form it consists of a
circuit containing a large coil and condenser of the correct
electrical dimensions to give it the desired frequency of oscillation,
a source of electric current for energizing the circuit, and
a step-up transformer, also tuned, for increasing the voltage.
The current of a few hundred volts obtained from the powerhouse
was stepped up by an ordinary iron box transformer to more than
30,000 volts and at this potential was fed into a condenser which,
when filled, discharged into the coil connected across its terminals.
The rate of the back-and-forth surge of current from condenser
into coil and coil back to condenser, in endless repetition,
is determined by the capacity of the condenser for holding current
and the length, or inductance, of the coil through which the
discharge must travel. An arc between the joint terminals of
condenser and coil completed the free oscillating path of the
high-frequency current.
In an oscillating circuit the current is at zero value at
the start of each cycle, rises to a high value and drops to zero
again at the end of each half cycle. The voltage does the same.
Both build up to high values at the midpoint of each half cycle.
The coil through which the current flows is surrounded by
a magnetic field produced by the current. with heavy current
flows, these fields can become very extensive and of high intensity,
particularly at the midpoint in each half cycle.
The primary coil, or energizing circuit of Tesla's oscillator,
consisted of a number of turns of heavy wire mounted on a circular
fence eighty feet in diameter in the great hall of his laboratory.
In the space within this fenced enclosure the magnetic field
built up to a crescendo of intensity with each half cycle of
the current in the primary coil. As the magnetic circles of force
moved to the center of the enclosure, they became more concentrated
and built up a high density of energy in space in this region.
Centered in this area was another coil perfectly tuned to
vibrate electrically in resonance with the crescendo of energy
in which it was immersed 300,000 times per second. This coil--about
ten feet in diameter, consisting of nearly one hundred turns
on a cagelike frame about ten feet high--in responding resonantly,
built up potentials with maximum values of more than 100,000,000
volts. No scientist has ever succeeded in building up currents
with even one tenth of this potential since that time.
when the first surge of magnetic energy crashed into this
coil, it caused a downward avalanche of electrons from the coil
into the earth, thereby inflating the earth electrically and
raising its potential. The next surge of magnetic energy was
of the opposite polarity and caused a tidal wave of electrons
from the earth to rush through the coil and upward to the terminal
of the coil, which was the metal ball mounted on the mast 200
feet high.
The downward flood of electrons was spread over the wide area
of the earth but the return upward flood was concentrated on
a small metal ball on top of the mast, upon which tremendously
high potentials developed. The electrons on the ball were under
explosive electrical pressure and were forced to escape. They
made a spearpoint of attack on the surrounding air, broke a small
opening, and through this rushed uncounted billions of billions
of electrons, their mad stampede rendering their path through
the air incandescent for a distance of scores of feet--in other
words, producing a flash of lightning.
Having thus succeeded in making the earth oscillate as if
it were a piece of laboratory apparatus, Tesla would now proceed
to test the practical applications of his unique method of worldwide
power transmission. (In describing the mode of transmission of
his oscillating currents through the earth, Tesla claimed the
path of the discharge was from his station directly through the
center of the earth and in a straight line to the antipode, the
return being by the same route, and that the current on this
straight-line path traveled at its normal velocity--the speed
of light. This flow, he declared, produced an accompanying surface
flow of current, which was in step at the starting point and
when they rejoined at the antipode; and this necessitated higher
velocities in flowing over the surface of the earth. The surface
velocities would be infinite at each of the antipodes, and would
decrease rapidly until at the equatorial region of this axis
it would travel at the normal velocity of the currents.)
The full story of Tesla's accomplishments at Colorado Springs
has never been told and never will be told. He carried the records,
engraved on his almost infallible memory, with him when he died.
Fritz Lowenstein, a competent electrical engineer, interested
in high-frequency currents, was his assistant at Colorado Springs.
Tesla, however, took neither Lowenstein nor anyone else into
his confidence.
It was not necessary for Tesla to write the detailed records
of experiments which scientists and engineers make, as routine,
of their laboratory tests. He possessed a most remarkable memory,
supplemented by his strange power of visualizing again, in their
full aspects of reality, any past events. He needed no reference
books, for he could quickly derive any desired formula from basic
concepts; and he even carried a table of logarithms in his head.
For these reasons there is a great lack of written records on
his experiments, and what is recorded is mostly of a minor nature.
Fundamental facts of great importance that he intended to
develop later in a practical manner were stored in the archives
of his mind to await the time when he would be able to present
a practical working model of the inventions based on his discoveries.
He had no fear that he would be anticipated by others because
he was so far in advance of his contemporaries that he could
safely bide his time for developing his ideas.
It was Tesla's intention to make the development of his discoveries
a one-man job. He was completely confident, at this time, of
his ability to live a century and a quarter, and to be actively
engaged in creative experimental work up to at least his one-hundredth
birthday, at which time he would give serious thought to the
task of writing his biography and a complete record of his experimental
work. Up to almost his eightieth year he adhered to this plan
without doubt as to its ultimate consummation.
As a result of this most unfortunate design, technical details
are lacking concerning the principal discoveries made at Colorado
Springs. By piecing together the fragmentary material published
in a number of publications, however, it appears evident that
Tesla, in addition to experiments with his gigantic current movements,
as a means of establishing world-wide broadcasts and making a
number of detectors for such use, tested his power transmission
system at a distance of twenty-six miles from his laboratory
and was able to light two hundred incandescent lamps, of the
Edison type, with electrical energy extracted from the earth
while his oscillator was operating. These lamps consumed about
fifty watts each; and if two hundred were used in the test bank,
the energy consumed would be 10,000 watts, or approximately thirteen
horsepower.
Transmission of thirteen horsepower wirelessly through the
earth for a distance of twenty-six miles can be accepted as a
very adequate demonstration of the practicability of Tesla's
plan. He claimed an efficiency of higher than 95 per cent for
this method of energy transmission; so he could, undoubtedly,
with a 300 horsepower oscillator, operate more than a dozen such
test demonstrations simultaneously anywhere on the globe. with
respect to the latter point he stated, "In this new system
it matters little--in fact, almost nothing--whether the transmission
is effected at a distance of a few miles, or of a few thousand
miles."
"while I have not as yet," he stated in the Century
article of June, 1900, "actually effected a transmission
of a considerable amount of energy, such as would be of industrial
importance, to a great distance by this new method, I have operated
several model plants under exactly the same conditions which
will exist in a large plant of this kind, and the practicability
of the system is thoroughly demonstrated."
Tesla was insistent, in his latter decades, on the existence,
the actuality, the importance and availability of many undisclosed
discoveries which he made at Colorado Springs. The author urged
upon Tesla two or three times the desirability of making a disclosure,
against the ever present danger of an accident that might cause
them to be lost to the world; and when the inventor was unimpressed
by this possibility, he was asked to permit the author to do
something that would bring about their practical development.
Tesla was courteously appreciative of the interest manifested,
but he was very emphatic in his insistence that he would handle
his own affairs as he saw fit, and that he expected shortly to
have adequate funds to develop his inventions.
Tesla returned to New York, in the fall of 1899, broke once
more, but with the knowledge that his efforts had greatly enriched
humanity with important scientific discoveries. yet even more
important was the new attitude his work had made possible: man
had achieved a method through which he could control his gigantic
planet, could look upon this heavenly body from the godlike vantage
point in which he could view it as a piece of laboratory apparatus
to be manipulated as he willed.
The pictures which Tesla brought back to New York showing
the gigantic electrical discharges from his oscillator, and the
stories he related of his experiences, created a tremendous impression
in his circle of friends. It was then that Robert Underwood Johnson,
one of the editors of the Century Magazine, at whose home in
Madison Avenue, in the exclusive Murray Hill section, Tesla was
a frequent and informal visitor, requested the inventor to write
an article telling of his accomplishments.
when the article was written, Johnson returned it, telling
Tesla he had served a mess of cold philosophical stones instead
of a dish of hot throbbing facts. The inventor had made but scant
reference to his recent astounding accomplishments, but developed
instead a philosophical system in which the progress of humanity
was viewed as purely a mechanical process, activated by the sources
of energy available. Three times the article went back to Tesla
and was as many times rewritten, despite the high literary quality
of the work on each occasion.
The article, which carried the title "The Problem of
Increasing Human Energy," created a sensation. Among those
whose interest it aroused was J. Pierpont Morgan--a most fortunate
circumstance for Tesla. The great financier had a soft spot for
geniuses, and Tesla was a perfect example of the species.
Morgan the financier was famous, but Morgan the philanthropist,
a greater personality, was to the general public non-existent,
so carefully guarded against publicity were his benefactions.
In this he was not always completely successful for there are,
of necessity, two parties to a benefficence, the giver and the
receiver; and the pride and gratitude of the latter can develop
into a weak spot in the shell of secrecy.
Tesla was invited to Morgan's home and quickly became a favorite
with the family. His record of accomplishment which promised
still greater achievements in the future, his pleasant personality,
his high moral standards of conduct, his celibate manner of life
and his manner of subordinating himself to his work, his boylike
enthusiasm, were factors that caused him to be admired not only
by Morgan but by all others who knew him well.
Morgan made inquiries of Tesla concerning his financial structure.
There were, in those days, a limited number of strong financial
groups who were playing a terrestrial game of chess with the
world's economic resources; the discoveries of a genius like
Tesla might well have a profound effect on the destinies of one
or more of these groups, and it would be well for an operator
in this field to know more of the inventor's commitments. Undoubtedly,
it was a source of surprise and satisfaction to Morgan when he
learned that Tesla was a lone operator and now entirely without
funds needed to carry on his researches.
Morgan knew well the inestimable value of Tesla's polyphase
alternating-current system. The Niagara development was a Morgan
enterprise, and gigantic plans were being builded on its already
proven success. The man who laid the scientific and engineering
foundation for this new and profitable industrial electrical
era was broke and engaged in developing a new source of power
distribution. He had supplanted Edison's half-mile power pygmy
with a giant having a thousand-mile range, and now he was working
on a system which experiments had shown could distribute power
wirelessly to the ends of the earth with but a small fraction
of the losses of the Edison system in distributing power by wire
for half a mile, and could even send current around the earth
cheaper than his own alternating-current system could distribute
it at a distance of one hundred miles. The economic implications
of this development staggered the imagination. what effect would
it have on the chess game being played by the world's financial
groups?
would the new wireless-distribution-of-power system fit into
the existing economic and financial structure? Could it be usefully
applied without derangements of greater magnitude than the benefits
it would produce? If it were adopted for development, who would
be best suited to control it? Could it be controlled in a practical
way when any spot on earth would be an outlet for an unlimited
reservoir of power for anyone who cared to tap it with a simple
device? How could compensation be collected for the service rendered?
These were some of the most obvious aspects of Tesla's world
power system that would instantly present themselves to the practical
mind of Morgan. In addition, Tesla was proposing a world-wide
broadcasting system for distributing news, entertainment, knowledge,
and a host of other interesting items. Morgan could well understand
the practical aspects of wireless communication in which a charge
could be made for transmitting messages from point to point,
which was a part of the Tesla system--but, to the inventor's
way of thinking, only a minor part compared to the more important
broadcasting and power-distribution systems.
A Morgan would understand that ingenious minds could work
out some method for placing such world-wide services on a practical
profit-paying basis; but this whole new Tesla development had
a fantastical aspect that was upsetting to so-called "practical"
minds not accustomed to thinking first-magnitude thoughts. The
new system might prove more important than the polyphase system
which went as a record-breaking bargain to Westinghouse for $1,000,000.
Westinghouse was then the most powerful competitor of the Edison
system which Morgan had backed, and particularly of the General
Electric Company whose financing Morgan had arranged. Although
Westinghouse secured a monopoly, means were found for causing
him to share it, by a license agreement, with the General Electric
Company, so the Morgan company had equal opportunities to exploit
the rich market.
History might now be repeating itself with the same inventor,
who now had a hypersuperpower system to supplant his own superpower
system. In this case Morgan could place himself in a position
to seize the monopoly of world power.
The group holding a monopoly control over such a system could
develop it, or not develop it, as it saw fit; it could be developed
to produce a profit by supplanting or supplementing the satisfactory
wire distribution system, or it could be put on the shelf to
prevent it from interfering with the existing system. A monopoly
of it could prevent any other group from securing it and using
it as a club to force concessions from those controlling existing
enterprises. Ownership of the Tesla world-power and world-broadcasting
patents might well prove an extremely profitable investment even
if a very high price were paid for them.
But there was also a more subtle viewpoint. without a strong
backing by a powerful source of capital, a world-wide system
such as Tesla proposed could never be brought into operating
existence. If a powerful group had an opportunity to get in on
the ground floor and secure monopoly control and failed to do
so, and let it become apparent that this was done intentionally,
the effect of such a decision could easily result in scaring
off any other groups and effectually preventing anyone from ever
backing the system.
Morgan, however, in his contacts with Tesla, brought no commercial
or practical aspects into the situation. His interest was entirely
that of a patron seeking to aid a genius to express his creative
talents. He made gifts to Tesla to which there were no strings
attached. The inventor could use the money as he saw fit. No
definite information is available as to the amount of those contributions,
but an authoritative source, close to Tesla, fixes the amount
which he received within a very short period at $150,000. Later
contributions, spread over a long period of years, are believed
to have brought the total to double this amount.
Tesla made no secret of Morgan's support. He stated, in the
article in the Electrical world and Engineer, published March
5, 1904, describing his wireless power work up to that time:
"For a large part of the work which I have done so far
I am indebted to the noble generosity of Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan,
which was all the more welcome and stimulating, as it was extended
at a time when those, who have since promised most, were the
greatest of doubters."
when Morgan made his first contribution, the rumor got into
circulation that he was financially interested in the enterprise
upon which Tesla now embarked. The resulting situation contained
some elements of usefulness for Tesla because of the tremendous
prestige of the financier. when, however, Tesla later found himself
critically in need of funds, and it became apparent that Morgan
was not financially involved in the project and apparently was
not coming to the rescue of the inventor, then the reaction set
in and the situation became distinctly and definitely unsatisfactory.
In 1900, however, Tesla had $150,000 on hand and a gigantic
idea to be put into operation. The world-shaking superman, riding
his tidal wave of fame and popularity, set to work.
THE year 1900 marked to Tesla not only the opening of a new
century but also the beginning of the world-superpower and radio-broadcasting
era. With the encouragement of J. P. Morgan to spur him on--if
he could accommodate any more spurring than his own inner drive
furnished--and with $150,000 in cash from the same source, he
was set to embark upon a gigantic venture, the building of a
world wireless-power and a world broadcasting station.
The cash on hand would be totally inadequate to finance the
project to completion, but this did not deter him from making
a start. He needed a laboratory both to replace the Houston Street
establishment, which had become entirely inadequate, and to include
equipment of the type employed at Colorado Springs, but designed
for use in the actual world-broadcasting process. The location
was determined as the result of an arrangement he made with James
S. Warden, manager and director of the Suffolk County Land Company,
a lawyer and banker from the West who had acquired two thousand
acres of land at Shoreham, in Suffolk County, Long Island, about
sixty miles from New York. The land was made the basis of a real-estate
development under the name Wardencliff.
Tesla visualized a power-and-broadcasting station which would
employ thousands of persons. He undertook the establishment,
eventually, of a Radio City, something far more ambitious than
the enterprise in Rockefeller Center in New York which bears
this name today. Tesla planned to have all wavelength channels
broadcast from a single station, a project which would have given
him a complete monopoly of the radio-broadcasting business. What
an opportunity near-sighted businessmen of his day overlooked
in not getting in on his project! But in that day Tesla was about
the only one who visualized modern broadcasting. Everyone else
visualized wireless as being useful only for sending telegraphic
communications between ship and shore and across the ocean.
Mr. Warden saw possibilities of a sort in Tesla's plan, however,
and offered him a tract of two hundred acres, of which twenty
acres were cleared, for his power station, with the expectation
that the two thousand men who would shortly be employed in the
station would build homes on convenient sites in the remainder
of the 2,000-acre tract. Tesla accepted.
Stanford White, the famous designer of many churches and other
architectural monuments throughout the country, was one of Tesla's
friends. He now disclosed to the famous architect his vision
of an industrial "city beautiful" and sought his co-operation
in realizing his dream. Mr. White was enthusiastic about the
idea and, as his contribution to Tesla's work, offered to underwrite
the cost of designing the strange tower the inventor sketched,
and all of the architectural work involved in the general plan
for the city. The actual work was done by W. D. Crow, of East
Orange, N. J., one of Mr. White's associates, who later became
famous as a designer of hospitals and other institutional buildings.
It was a fantastic-looking tower, with strange structural
limitations, which Mr. Crow found himself designing. Tesla required
a tower, about 154 feet high, to support at its peak a giant
copper electrode 100 feet in diameter and shaped like a gargantuan
doughnut with a tubular diameter of twenty feet. (This was later
changed to a hemispherical electrode.)
The tower would have to be a skeletonized structure, built
almost entirely of wood, metal to be reduced to an utter minimum
and any metal fixtures employed to be of copper. No engineering
data were available on wood structures of this height and type.
The structure Tesla required had a large amount of "sail
area," or surface exposed to wind, concentrated at the top,
creating stresses that had to be provided for in a tower that
itself possessed only limited stability. Mr. Crow solved the
engineering problems and then the equally diffcult task of incorporating
esthetic qualities in such an edifice.
When the design was completed another diffculty was encountered.
None of the well-known builders could be induced to undertake
the task of erecting the tower. A competent framer, associated
with Norcross Bros., who were a large contracting firm in those
days, finally took over the contract, although he, too, expressed
fears that the winter gales might overturn the structure. (It
stood, however, for a dozen years. When the Government, for military
reasons decided it was necessary to remove this conspicuous landmark
during the First World War, heavy charges of dynamite were necessary
in order to topple it, and even then it remained intact on the
ground like a fallen Martian invader out of Wells' War of the
Worlds.) The tower was completed in 1902, and with it a large
low brick building more than 100 feet square which would provide
quarters for the powerhouse and laboratory. While the structures
were being built, Tesla commuted every day from the Waldorf-Astoria
to Wardencliff, arriving at the near-by Shoreham station shortly
after eleven am and remaining until three-thirty. He was always
accompanied by a man servant, a Serbian, who carried a heavy
hamper filled with food. When the laboratory transferred from
Houston Street was in full operation at Wardencliff, Tesla rented
the Bailey cottage near the Long Island Sound shore and there
made his home for a year.
The heavy equipment, the dynamos and motors, that Tesla desired
for his plant were of an unusual design not produced by manufacturers,
and he encountered many vexatious delays in securing such material.
He was able to carry on a wide range of high-frequency current
and other experiments in his new laboratory, but the principal
project, that of setting up the worldwide broadcasting station,
lagged. Meanwhile, he had a number of glass blowers making tubes
for use in transmitting and receiving his broadcast programs.
This was a dozen years before De Forest invented the form of
radio tube now in general use. The secret of Tesla's tubes died
with him.
Tesla seemed to be entirely fearless of his high-frequency
currents of millions of volts. He had, nevertheless, the greatest
respect for the electric current in all forms, and was extremely
careful in working on his apparatus. When working on circuits
that might come "alive," he always worked with one
hand in his pocket, using the other to manipulate tools. He insisted
that all of his workers do likewise when working on the 60-cycle
low-frequency alternating-current circuits, whether the potential
was 50,000 or 110 volts. This safeguard reduced the possibility
of a dangerous current finding a circuit through the arms across
the body, where there was chance that it might stop the action
of the heart.
In spite of the great care which he manifested in all of his
experimental work, he had a narrow escape from losing his life
at the Wardencliff plant. He was making experiments on the properties
of small-diameter jets of water moving at high velocity and under
very high pressures, of the order of 10,000 pounds per square
inch. Such a stream could be struck by a heavy iron bar without
the stream being disrupted. The impinging bar would bounce back
as if it had struck another solid iron bar--a strange property
for a mechanically weak substance like water. The cylinder holding
the water under high pressure was a heavy one made of wrought
iron. Tesla was unable to secure a wrought-iron cap for the upper
surface, so he used a heavier one of cast iron, a more brittle
metal. One day when he raised the pressure to a point higher
than he had previously used, the cylinder exploded. The cast-iron
cap broke and a large fragment shot within a few inches of his
face as it went on a slanting path upward and finally crashed
through the roof. The high-pressure stream of water had peculiar
destructive effects on anything with which it came in contact,
even tough, strong metals. Tesla never revealed the purpose or
the results of these high-pressure experiments.
Tesla's insistence on the utmost neatness in his laboratory
almost resulted in a tragedy through a case of thoughtlessness
on the part of an assistant. Arrangements were being made for
installing a heavy piece of machinery which was to be lag bolted
to the thick concrete floor. Holes had been drilled in the concrete.
The plan called for pouring molten lead into these holes and
screwing the heavy bolts into the metal when it cooled. As soon
as the holes were drilled, a young assistant starting cleaning
up the debris. He not only swept up the stone chips and dust:
he got a mop and thoroughly washed that area of the floor, thoughtlessly
letting some of the water get into the holes. He then dried the
floor. In the meantime Tesla and George Scherff, who was his
financial secretary but also served in any way in which he could
be helpful, were melting the lead which would hold the lag screws
in the holes in the floor. Scherff took the first large ladleful
of lead from the furnace and started across the laboratory to
where the holes had been drilled, followed shortly by Tesla bearing
another ladle.
Scherff bent down--and as he poured the hot liquid metal into
one of the holes an explosion followed instantly. The molten
lead was blown upward into his face in a shower of searing hot
drops of liquid metal. The water which the assistant used to
swab the floor had settled into the holes and, when the melted
lead come in contact with it, it was changed to steam which shot
the lead out of the hole like a bullet out of the barrel of a
rifle. Both men were showered with drops of hot metal and dropped
their ladles. Tesla, being several feet away, was only slightly
injured; but Scherff was very seriously burned about the face
and hands. Drops of the metal had struck his eyes and so severely
burned them that it was feared for a while that his sight could
not be saved.
However, despite the almost unlimited possibilities for accidents
in connection with the vast variety of experiments which Tesla
conducted in totally unexplored fields, using high voltages,
high amperages, high pressures, high velocities and high temperatures,
he went through his entire career with only one accident in which
he suffered injury. In that a sharp instrument slipped, entered
his palm and penetrated through the hand. The accident to Scherff
was the only one in which a member of his staff was injured,
with the exception of a young assistant who developed X-ray burns.
He had probably been exposed to the rays from one of Tesla's
tubes which, unknown to Tesla and everyone else, had been producing
them even before Roentgen announced their discovery. Tesla had
given them another name and had not fully investigated their
properties. This was probably the first case of X-ray burns on
record.
Tesla was an indefatigable worker, and it was hard for him
to understand why others were incapable of such feats of endurance
as he was able to accomplish. He was willing to pay unusually
high wages to workers who were willing to stick with him on protracted
tasks but never demanded that anyone work beyond a reasonable
day's labor. On one occasion a piece of long-awaited equipment
arrived and Tesla was anxious to get it installed and operating
as quickly as possible. The electricians worked through twenty-four
hours, stopping only for meals, and then for another twenty-four
hours. The workers then dropped out, one by one, picking out
nooks in the building in which to sleep. While they took from
eight to twelve hours' sleep, Tesla continued to work; and when
they came back to the job Tesla was still going strong and worked
with them through his third sleepless twenty-four-hour period.
The men were then given several days off in which to rest up;
but Tesla, apparently none the worse for his seventy-two hours
of toil, went through his next day of experiments, accomplishing
a total of eighty-four hours without sleep or rest.
The plant at Wardencliff was intended primarily for demonstrating
the radio-broadcasting phase of his "World System";
the power-distribution station was to be built at Niagara Falls.
Tesla at this time published a brochure on his "World
System" which indicates the remarkable state of advancement
he had projected in the wireless art, now called radio, while
other experimenters were struggling to acquire familiarity with
rudimentary devices. At that time, however, his promises seemed
fantastic. The brochure contained the following description of
his system and his objectives:
The World System has resulted from a combination of several
original discoveries made by the inventor in the course of long
continued research and experimentation. It makes possible not
only the instantaneous and precise wireless transmission of any
kind of signals, messages or characters, to all parts of the
world, but also the interconnection of the existing telegraph,
telephone, and other signal stations without any change in their
present equipment. By its means, for instance, a telephone subscriber
here many call up any other subscriber on the Globe. An inexpensive
receiver, not bigger than a watch, will enable him to listen
anywhere, on land or sea, to a speech delivered, or music played
in some other place, however distant. These examples are cited
merely to give an idea of the possibilities of this great scientific
advance, which annihilates distance and makes that perfect conductor,
the Earth, available for all the innumerable purposes which human
ingenuity has found for a line wire. One far reaching result
of this is that any device capable of being operated through
one or more wires (at a distance obviously restricted) can likewise
be actuated, without artificial conductors and with the same
facility and accuracy, at distances to which there are no limits
other than those imposed by the physical dimensions of the Globe.
Thus, not only will entirely new fields for commercial exploitation
be opened up by this ideal method of transmission, but the old
ones vastly extended.
The World System is based on the application of the following
important inventions and discoveries:
1. The Tesla Transformer. This apparatus is, in the production
of electrical vibrations, as revolutionary as gunpowder was in
warfare. Currents many times stronger than any ever generated
in the usual ways, and sparks over 100 feet long have been produced
by the inventor with an instrument of this kind.
2. The Magnifying Transmitter. This is Tesla's best invention--a
peculiar transformer specially adapted to excite the Earth, which
is in the transmission of electrical energy what the telescope
is in astronomical observation. By the use of this marvelous
device he has already set up electrical movements of greater
intensity than those of lightning and passed a current, suffcient
to light more than 200 incandescent lamps, around the Globe.
3. The Tesla Wireless System. This system comprises a number
of improvements and is the only means known for transmitting
economically electrical energy to a distance without wires. Careful
tests and measurements in connection with an experimental station
of great activity, erected by the inventor in Colorado, have
demonstrated that power in any desired amount can be conveyed
clear across the Globe if necessary, with a loss not exceeding
a few per cent.
4. The Art of Individualization. This invention of Tesla is
to primitive tuning what refined language is to unarticulated
expression. It makes possible the transmission of signals or
messages absolutely secret and exclusive both in active and passive
aspect, that is, non-interfering as well as non-interferable.
Each signal is like an individual of unmistakable identity and
there is virtually no limit to the number of stations or instruments
that can be simultaneously operated without the slightest mutual
disturbance.
5. The Terrestrial Stationary Waves. This wonderful discovery,
popularly explained, means that the Earth is responsive to electrical
vibrations of definite pitch just as a tuning fork to certain
waves of sound. These particular electrical vibrations, capable
of powerfully exciting the Globe, lend themselves to innumerable
uses of great importance commercially and in many other respects.
The first World System power plant can be put in operation
in nine months. With this power plant it will be practical to
attain electrical activities up to ten million horsepower and
it is designed to serve for as many technical achievements as
are possible without undue expense. Among these the following
may be mentioned:
1. Interconnection of the existing telegraph exchanges of
offces all over the World;
2. Establishment of a secret and non-interferable government
telegraph service;
3. Interconnection of all the present telephone exchanges
or offces all over the Globe;
4. Universal distribution of general news, by telegraph or
telephone, in connection with the Press;
5. Establishment of a World System of intelligence transmission
for exclusive private use;
6. Interconnection and operation of all stock tickers of the
world;
7. Establishment of a world system of musical distribution,
etc.;
8. Universal registration of time by cheap clocks indicating
the time with astronomical precision and requiring no attention
whatever;
9. Facsimile transmission of typed or handwritten characters,
letters, checks, etc.;
10. Establishment of a universal marine service enabling navigators
of all ships to steer perfectly without compass, to determine
the exact location, hour and speed, to prevent collisions and
disasters, etc.;
11. Inauguration of a system of world printing on land and
sea;
12. Reproduction anywhere in the world of photographic pictures
and all kinds of drawings or records.
Thus, more than forty years ago, Tesla planned to inaugurate
every feature of modern radio, and several facilities which have
not yet been developed. He was to continue, for another twenty
years, to be the only "wireless" inventor who had yet
visualized a broadcasting service.
While at work on his Wardencliff radio-broadcasting plant,
Tesla was also evolving plans for establishing his world power
station at Niagara Falls. So sure was he of the successful outcome
of his efforts that he stated in a newspaper interview in 1903
that he would light the lamps of the coming international exposition
in Paris with power wirelessly transmitted from the Falls. Circumstances,
however, prevented him from making good this promise. His diffculties
and his plans were outlined in a statement published in the Electrical
World and Engineer, March 5, 1904:
The first of these central plants would have been already
completed had it not been for unforeseen delays which, fortunately,
have nothing to do with its purely technical features. But this
loss of time, while vexatious, may, after all, prove to be a
blessing in disguise. The best design of which I know has been
adopted, and the transmitter will emit a wave complex of a total
maximum activity of 10,000,000 horsepower, one percent of which
is amply suffcient to "girdle the globe." This enormous
rate of energy delivery, approximately twice that of the combined
falls of Niagara, is obtainable only by the use of certain artifices,
which I shall make known in due course.
For a large part of the work which I have done so far I am
indebted to the noble generosity of Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, which
was all the more welcome and stimulating, as it was extended
at a time when those, who have since promised most, were the
greatest of doubters. I have also to thank my friend Stanford
White, for much unselfish and valuable assistance. This work
is now far advanced, and though the results may be tardy, they
are sure to come.
Meanwhile, the transmission of energy on an industrial scale
is not being neglected. The Canadian Niagara Power Company have
offered me a splendid inducement, and next to achieving success
for the sake of the art, it will give me the greatest satisfaction
to make their concession financially profitable to them. In this
first power plant, which I have been designing for a long time,
I propose to distribute 10,000 horsepower under a tension of
10,000,000 volts, which I am now able to produce and handle with
safety.
This energy will be collected all over the globe preferably
in small amounts, ranging from a fraction of one to a few horsepower.
One of the chief uses will be the illumination of isolated homes.
It takes very little power to light a dwelling with vacuum tubes
operated by high frequency currents and in each instance a terminal
a little above the roof will be suffcient. Another valuable application
will be the driving of clocks and other such apparatus. These
clocks will be exceedingly simple, will require absolutely no
attention and will indicate rigorously correct time. The idea
of impressing upon the earth American time is fascinating and
very likely to become popular. There are innumerable devices
of all kinds which are either now employed or can be supplied
and by operating them in this manner I may be able to offer a
great convenience to the whole world with a plant of no more
than 10,000 horsepower. The introduction of this system will
give opportunities for invention and manufacture such as have
never presented themselves before.
Knowing the far reaching importance of this first attempt
and its effect upon future development, I shall proceed slowly
and carefully. Experience has taught me not to assign a term
to enterprises the consummation of which is not wholly dependent
on my own abilities and exertions. But I am hopeful that these
great realizations are not far off and I know that when this
first work is completed they will follow with mathematical certitude.
When the great truth accidentally revealed and experimentally
confirmed is fully recognized, that this planet, with all its
appalling immensity, is to electric current virtually no more
than a small metal ball and that by this fact many possibilities,
each baffling the imagination and of incalculable consequence,
are rendered absolutely sure of accomplishment; when the first
plant is inaugurated, and it is shown that a telegraphic message,
almost as secret and non-interferable as a thought, can be transmitted
to any terrestrial distance, the sound of the human voice, with
all its intonations and inflections, faithfully and instantly
reproduced at any point of the globe, the energy of a waterfall
made available for supplying light, heat or motive power, anywhere
on sea, or land, or high in the air--humanity will be like an
ant heap stirred up with a stick: See the excitement coming.
The Niagara Falls plant was never built; and diffculties,
soon enough, were encountered at the Wardencliff plant not only
in securing desired equipment but also finances.
Tesla's greatest oversight was that he neglected to invent,
so to speak, a device for making the unlimited quantities of
money that were necessary to develop his other inventions. As
we have seen, he was utterly lacking in the phase of personality
that made possible the securing of financial returns directly
from his inventions. An individual with his ability could have
made millions out of each of a number of Tesla's minor inventions.
If he had taken the trouble, for example, to collect annual royalties
on twenty or more different kinds of devices put out by as many
manufacturers employing his Tesla coil for medical treatments,
he would have had ample income to finance his World Wireless
System.
His mind, however, was too fully occupied with fascinating
scientific problems. He had, at times, nearly a score of highly
skilled workmen constantly employed in his laboratory developing
the electrical inventions he was continuing to make at a rapid
rate. Armed guards were always stationed around the laboratory
to prevent spying on his inventions. His payroll was heavy, his
bank balance became dangerously low, but he was so immersed in
his experimental work that he continuously put off the task of
making an effort to repair his finances. He soon found himself
facing judgments obtained by creditors on accounts upon which
he could not make payments. He was forced, in 1905, to close
the Wardencliff laboratory.
The fantastic tower in front of the laboratory was never completed.
The doughnut-shaped copper electrode was never built because
Tesla changed his mind and decided to have a copper hemisphere
100 feet in diameter and 50 feet high built on top of the 154-foot
cone-shaped tower. A skeleton framework for holding the hemispherical
plates was built, but the copper sheeting was never applied to
it. The 300-horsepower dynamos and the apparatus for operating
the broadcasting station were left intact, but they were eventually
removed by the engineering firm that installed them and had not
been paid.
Tesla opened an offce at 165 Broadway, in New York, where
for a while he tried to contrive some means for reviving his
project. Thomas Fortune Ryan, the well-known financier, and H.
O. Havemeyer, the leading sugar refiner, aided him with contributions
of $10,000 and $5,000 respectively. Instead of using these to
open another laboratory, he applied them to paying off the debts
on his now defunct World Wireless System. He paid off every penny
due to every creditor.
When it became apparent that Tesla was in financial diffculties,
many who had assumed that Morgan was financially involved as
an investor in his project were disillusioned. When specific
inquiries revealed that the great financier held no interest
whatever in the enterprise, the rumor got into circulation that
Morgan had withdrawn his support; and when no reason for such
action could be learned the rumor expanded to carry the story
that Tesla's system was impracticable. As a matter of fact, Morgan
continued to make generous personal contributions to Tesla almost
up to the time of his own death; and his son did so to a lesser
extent for a short time.
Tesla made no effort to combat the growing rumors.
If Tesla could have tolerated a business manager, and had
placed the development of his patents in the hands of a businessman,
he could have established as early as 1896 a practical ship-to-shore,
and probably a trans-oceanic wireless service; and these would
have given him a monopoly in this field. He was asked to rig
up a wireless set on a boat to report the progress of the international
yacht race for Lloyds of London in 1896, but he refused the offer,
which was a lucrative one, on the grounds that he would not demonstrate
his system publicly on less than a world-wide basis because it
could be confused with the amateurish efforts being made by other
experimenters. If he had accepted this offer--and he could have
met the requirements without the least technical diffculty--he
undoubtedly would have found his interests diverted to some extent
into a profitable commercial channel that might have made a vast,
and favorable, change in the second half of his life.
Tesla, however, could not be bothered with minor, even though
profitable projects. The superman, the man magnificent, was too
strong in him. The man who had put industry on an electrical
power basis, the man who had set the whole earth in vibration,
could not fill a minor role of carrying messages for hire. He
would function in his major capacity or not at all; he would
be a Jupiter, never a Mercury.
George Scherff, who was engaged by Tesla as bookkeeper and
secretary when he opened his Houston Street laboratory, was a
practical individual. He managed, as far as was humanly possible,
to keep the inventor disentangled in his contacts with the business
world. The more he knew Tesla, the better he liked him; and the
more respect he had for his genius and his ability as an inventor,
the more he became conscious of the fact that this genius was
totally lacking in business ability.
Scherff was understandably distressed by a situation in which
an enterprise was continuously spending money but never receiving
any. He sought to protect as far as possible the $40,000 which
Tesla received from Adams as an investment in the enterprise;
and it was stretched to cover more than three years of great
activity. Scherff wanted Tesla to work out plans for deriving
an income from his inventions. Each new development which Tesla
produced was studied by Scherff and made the basis for a plan
for manufacture and sale of a device. Tesla uniformly rejected
all the suggestions. "This is all small-time stuff,"
he would reply. "I cannot be bothered with it."
Even when it was pointed out to him that many manufacturers
were using his Tesla coils, selling great numbers of them and
making plenty of money out of them, his interest could not be
aroused to enter this profitable field, nor to permit Scherff
to arrange to have a sideline set-up which could be conducted
without interfering with his research work. Nor could he be induced
to bring suits to protect his invention and seek to make the
manufacturers pay him royalties. He admitted, however, "If
the manufacturers paid me twenty-five cents on each coil they
sold I would be a wealthy man."
When Lloyds of London made their request that he set up a
wireless outfit on a boat and report the international yacht
races of 1896, by his new wireless system, and offered a generous
honorarium, Scherff became insistent that the offer be accepted;
and he urged Tesla to drop all other work temporarily and use
the publicity he would get from the exploit as a means of floating
a commercial company for transmitting wireless messages between
ship and shore and across the ocean, pointing out that money
would be made both in manufacturing the apparatus and in transmitting
messages. The company, Scherff suggested, could be operated by
managers to produce an income and Tesla could return to his work
of making inventions and always have plenty of money to pay for
the cost of his researches.
Scherff can look back today, as he sits on the porch of his
Westchester home, and decide, through a retrospect of fifty years,
that his plan was basically sound, with the Radio Corporation
of America, its extensive manufacturing facilities and its worldwide
communication system, its tremendous capital system and earnings,
as evidence in support of the claim.
Tesla's reply to the proposal was, as usual, "Mr. Scherff,
that is small-time stuff. I cannot be bothered with it. Just
wait until you see the magnificent inventions I am going to produce,
and then we will all make millions."
Tesla's millions never came. Scherff remained with him until
the Wardencliff laboratory closed, owing to the lack of income,
which he had been trying to circumvent. Scherff then established
a lucrative connection with the Union Sulphur Co. but he still
continued, without taking compensation, to give Tesla one day
a week of his time and keep his business affairs disentangled
as far as possible. Tesla was meticulously careful about paying
everyone who performed any service for him, but this was counterbalanced
by an active faculty for contracting bills without waiting to
see if he had funds on hand to meet them. Money was an annoying
anchor that always seemed to be dragging and hindering his research
activities--something that was too mundane to merit the time
and attention he should be giving to more important things.
Scherff, tight-lipped and businesslike, cannot be induced
to talk of Tesla's affairs. If he were, instead, a loquacious
philosopher, he might be induced to smile over the frailties
of human nature, and the strange pranks which fate can play on
individuals, as he thinks of Tesla, who, on the basis of a single
invention, might have become an individual Radio Corporation
of America and failed to do so, and who passed up equal chances
on two hundred other inventions, any one of which could have
produced a fortune. And for contrast, he can recall occasions
in recent decades when it was necessary to make modest loans
to the great Tesla to permit him to meet the need for current
personal necessities. But Scherff refuses to permit any close
questions or discussion about these incidents.
THIRTEEN
WHEN his World Wireless System project crashed, Tesla turned
again to a project to which he had given considerable thought
at the time he was developing his polyphase alternating-current
system: that of developing a rotary engine which would be as
far in advance of existing steam engines as his alternating-current
system was ahead of the direct-current system, and which could
be used for driving his dynamos.
All of the steam engines in use in powerhouses at that time
were of the reciprocating type; essentially the same as those
developed by Newcomer and Watt, but larger in size, better in
construction and more effcient in operation.
Tesla's engine was of a different type--a turbine in which
jets of steam injected between a series of disks produced rotary
motion at high velocity in the cylinder on which these disks
were mounted. The steam entered at the outer edge of the disks,
pursued a spiral path of a dozen or more convolutions, and left
the engine near the central shaft.
When Tesla informed a friend in 1902 that he was working on
an engine project, he declared he would produce an engine so
small, simple and powerful that it would be a "powerhouse
in a hat." The first model, which he made about 1906, fulfilled
this promise. It was small enough to fit into the dome of a derby
hat, measured a little more than six inches in its largest dimension,
and developed thirty horsepower. The power-producing performance
of this little engine vastly exceeded that of every known kind
of prime mover in use at that time. The engine weighed a little
less than ten pounds. Its output was therefore three horsepower
per pound. The rotor weighed only a pound and a half, and its
light weight and high power yield gave Tesla a slogan which he
used on his letterheads and envelopes--"Twenty horsepower
per pound."
There was nothing new, of course, in the basic idea of obtaining
circular motion directly from a stream of moving fluid. Windmills
and water wheels, devices as old as history, performed this feat.
Hero, the Alexandrian writer, about 200 bc, described, but he
did not invent, the first turbine. It consisted of a hollow sphere
of metal mounted on an axle, with two tubes sticking out of the
sphere at a tangent to its surface. When water was placed in
the sphere and the device was suspended in a fire, the reaction
of the steam coming out of the tubes caused the device to rotate.
Tesla's ingenious and original development of the turbine
idea probably had its origin in that amusing and unsuccessful
experiment he made when, as a boy, he tried to build a vacuum
motor and observed its wooden cylinder turn slightly by the drag
of the air leaking into the vacuum chamber. Later, too, when
as a youth he fled to the mountains to escape military service
and played with the idea of transporting mail across the ocean
through an underwater tube, through which a hollow sphere was
to be carried by a rapidly moving stream of water, he had discovered
that the friction of the water on the walls of the tube made
the idea impracticable. The friction would slow down the velocity
of the stream of water so that excessive amounts of power would
be required to move the water at a desired speed and pressure.
Conversely, if the water moved at this speed, the friction caused
it to try to drag the enclosing tube along with it.
It was this friction which Tesla now utilized in his turbine.
A jet of steam rushing at high velocity between disks with a
very small distance separating them was slowed down by the friction--but
the disks, being capable of rotation, moved with increasing velocity
until it was almost equal to that of the steam. In addition to
the friction factor, there exists a peculiar attraction between
gases and metal surfaces; and this made it possible for the moving
steam to grip the metal of the disks more effectively and drag
them around at high velocities. The first model which Tesla made
in 1906 had twelve disks five inches in diameter. It was operated
by compressed air, instead of steam, and attained a speed of
20,000 revolutions per minute. It was Tesla's intention eventually
to use oil as fuel, burning it in a nozzle and taking advantage
of the tremendous increase in volume, in the change from a liquid
to burned highly expanded gases, to turn the rotor. This would
eliminate the use of boilers for generating steam and give the
direct process proportional increased effciency.
Had Tesla proceeded with the development of his turbine in
1889 when he returned from the Westinghouse plant, his turbine
might perhaps have been the one eventually developed to replace
the slow, big, lumbering reciprocating engines then in use. The
fifteen years, however, which he devoted to the development of
currents of high potential and high frequency, had entailed a
delay which gave opportunity for developers of other turbine
ideas to advance their work to a stage which now was effective
in putting Tesla in the status of a very late starter. In the
meantime, turbines had been developed which were virtually windmills
in a box. They consisted of rotors with small buckets or vanes
around the circumference which were struck by the incoming steam
jet. They lacked the simplicity of the Tesla turbine; but by
the time Tesla introduced his type, the others were well entrenched
in the development stage.
Tesla's first tiny motor was built in 1906 by Julius C. Czito,
who operated at Astoria, Long Island, a machine shop for making
inventor's models. He also built the subsequent 1911 and 1925
models of the turbine, and many other devices on which Tesla
worked up to 1929. Mr. Czito's father had been a member of Tesla's
staff in the Houston Street laboratories, from 1892 to 1899,
and at Colorado Springs.
Mr. Czito's description of the first model is as follows:
The rotor consisted of a stack of very thin disks six inches
in diameter, made of German silver. The disks were one thirty-second
of an inch thick and were separated by spacers of the same metal
and same thickness but of much smaller diameter which were cut
in the form of a cross with a circular center section. The extended
arms served as ribs to brace the disks.
There were eight disks and the edgewise face of the stack
was only one-half inch across. They were mounted on the center
of a shaft about six inches long. The shaft was nearly an inch
in diameter in the mid section and was tapered in steps to less
than half an inch at the ends. The rotor was set in a casing
made in four parts bolted together.
The circular chamber where the rotor turned was accurately
machined to allow a clearance of one sixty-fourth of an inch
between the casing and the face of the rotor. Mr. Tesla desired
an almost touching fit between the rotor face and the casing
when the latter was turning. The large clearance was necessary
because the rotor attained tremendously high speeds, averaging
35,000 revolutions per minute. At this speed the centrifugal
force generated by the turning movement was so great it appreciably
stretched the metal in the rotating disks. Their diameter when
turning at top speed was one thirty-second of an inch greater
than when they were standing still.
A larger model was built by Tesla in 1910. It had disks twelve
inches in diameter, and with a speed of 10,000 revolutions per
minute it developed 100 horsepower, indicating a greatly improved
effciency over the first model. It developed more than three
times as much power at half the speed.
During the following year, 1911, still further improvements
were made. The disks were reduced to a diameter of 9.75 inches
and the speed of operation was cut down by ten per cent, to 9,000
revolutions per minute--and the power output increased by ten
per cent, to 110 horsepower!
Following this test, Tesla issued a statement in which he
declared:
I have developed 110 horsepower with disks nine and three
quarter inches in diameter and making a thickness of about two
inches. Under proper conditions the performance might have been
as much as 1,000 horsepower. In fact there is almost no limit
to the mechanical performance of such a machine. This engine
will work with gas, as in the usual type of explosion engine
used in automobiles and airplanes, even better than it did with
steam. Tests which I have conducted have shown that the rotary
effort with gas is greater than with steam.
Enthusiastic over the success of his smaller models of the
turbine, operated on compressed air, and to a more limited extent
by direct combustion of gasoline, Tesla designed and built a
larger, double unit, which he planned to test with steam in the
Waterside Station, the main powerhouse of the New York Edison
Company.
This was a station which had originally been designed to operate
on the direct-current system developed by Edison--but it was
now operating throughout on Tesla's polyphase alternating-current
system.
Now Tesla, invading the Edison sanctum to test a new type
of turbine which he hoped would replace the types in use, was
definitely in enemy territory. The fact that he had Morgan backing,
and that the Edison Company was a "Morgan company,"
had no nullifying effect on the Edison-Tesla feud.
This situation was not softened in any way by Tesla's method
of carrying on his tests. Tesla was a confirmed "sun dodger";
he preferred to work at night rather than in the daytime. Powerhouses,
not from choice but from necessity, have their heaviest demands
for current after sunset. The day load would be relatively light;
but as darkness approached, the dynamos started to groan under
the increasing night load. The services of the workers at the
Waterside Station were made available to Tesla for the setting
up and tests of his turbine with the expectation that the work
would be done during the day when the tasks of the workers were
easiest.
Tesla, however, would rarely show up until five o'clock in
the afternoon, or later, and would turn a deaf ear to the pleas
of workers that he arrive earlier. He insisted that certain of
the workers whom he favored remain after their five-o'clock quitting
time on the day shift to work with him on an overtime basis.
Nor did he maintain a conciliatory attitude toward the engineering
staff or the offcials of the company. The attitudes, naturally,
were mutual.
The turbine Tesla built for this test had a rotor 18 inches
in diameter which turned at a speed of 9,000 revolutions per
minute. It developed 200 horsepower. The overall dimensions of
the engine were--three feet long, two feet wide and two feet
high. It weighed 400 pounds.
Two such turbines were built and installed in a line on a
single base. The shafts of both were connected to a torque rod.
Steam was fed to both engines so that, if they were free to rotate,
they would turn in opposite directions. The power developed was
measured by the torque rod connected to the two opposing shafts.
At a formal test, to which Tesla invited a great many guests,
he issued a statement in which he said, as reported, in part:
It should be noted that although the experimental plant develops
200 horsepower with 125 pounds at the supply pipe and free exhaust
it could show an output of 300 horsepower with full pressure
of the supply circuit. If the turbine were compounded and the
exhaust were led to a low pressure unit carrying about three
times the number of disks contained in the high pressure element,
with connection to a condenser affording 28.5 to 29.0 inches
of vacuum the results obtained in the present high pressure machine
indicate that the compounded unit would give an output of 600
horsepower without great increase of dimensions. This estimate
is very conservative.
Tests have shown that when the turbine is running at 9,000
revolutions per minute under an inlet pressure of 125 pounds
to the square inch and with free exhaust 200 brake horsepower
are developed. The consumption under these conditions of maximum
output is 38 pounds of saturated steam per horsepower per hour,
a very high effciency when we consider that the heat drop, measured
by thermometers, is only 130 B.T.U. and that the energy transformation
is effected in one stage. Since three times the number of heat
units are available in a modern plant with superheat and high
vacuum the utilization of these facilities would mean a consumption
of less than 12 pounds per horsepower hour in such turbines adapted
to take the full drop.
Under certain conditions very high thermal effciencies have
been obtained which demonstrate that in large machines based
on this principle steam consumption will be much lower and should
approximate the theoretical minimum thus resulting in the nearly
frictionless turbine transmitting almost the entire expansive
energy of the steam to the shaft.
It should be kept in mind that all of the turbines which Tesla
built and tested were single-stage engines, using about one-third
of the energy of the steam. In practical use, they were intended
to be installed with a second stage which would employ the remaining
energy and increase the power output about two or three fold.
(The two types of turbines in common use each have a dozen and
more stages within a single shell.)
Some of the Edison electric camp, observing the torque-rod
tests and apparently not understanding that in such a test the
two rotors remain stationary--their opposed pressures staging
a tug of war measured as torque--circulated the story that the
turbine was a complete failure; that this turbine would not be
practical if its effciency had been increased a thousand fold.
It was stories such as these that contributed to the imputation
that Tesla was an impractical visionary. The Tesla turbine, however,
used as a single-stage engine, functioning as a pygmy power producer,
in the form in which it was actually tested, anticipated by more
than twenty-five years a type of turbine which has been installed
in recent years in the Waterside Station. This is a very small
engine, with blades on its rotor, known as a "topping turbine,"
which is inserted in the steam line between the boilers and the
ordinary turbines. Steam of increased pressure is supplied, and
the topping turbine skims this "cream" from the steam
and exhausts steam that runs the other turbines in their normal
way.
The General Electric Company was developing the Curtis turbine
at that time, and the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing
Company was developing the Parsons turbine; and neither company
showed the slightest interest in Tesla's demonstration.
Further development of his turbine on a larger scale would
have required a large amount of money--and Tesla did not possess
even a small amount.
Finally he succeeded in interesting the Allis Chalmers Manufac-
turing Company of Milwaukee, builders of reciprocating engines
and turbines, and other heavy machinery. In typical Tesla fashion,
though, he manifested in his negotiations such a lack of diplomacy
and insight into human nature that he would have been better
off if he had completely failed to make any arrangements for
exploiting the turbine.
Tesla, an engineer, ignored the engineers on the Allis Chalmers
staff and went directly to the president. While an engineering
report was being prepared on his proposal, he went to the Board
of Directors and "sold" that body on his project before
the engineers had a chance to be heard. Three turbines were built.
Two of them had twenty disks eighteen inches in diameter and
were tested with steam at eighty pounds pressure. They developed
at speeds of 12,000 and 10,000 revolutions per minute, respectively,
200 horsepower. This was exactly the same power output as had
been achieved by Tesla's 1911 model, which had disks of half
this diameter and was operated at 9,000 revolutions under 125
pounds pressure. A much larger engine was tackled next. It had
fifteen disks sixty inches in diameter, was designed to operate
at 3,600 revolutions per minute, and was rated at 500 kilowatts
capacity, or about 675 horsepower.
Hans Dahlstrand, Consulting Engineer of the Steam Turbine
Department, reports, in part:
We also built a 500 kw steam turbine to operate at 3,600 revolutions.
The turbine rotor consisted of fifteen disks 60 inches in diameter
and one eighth inch thick. The disks were placed approximately
one eighth inch apart. The unit was tested by connecting to a
generator. The maximum mechanical effciency obtained on this
unit was approximately 38 per cent when operating at steam pressure
of approximately 80 pounds absolute and a back pressure of approximately
3 pounds absolute and 100 degrees F superheat at the inlet.
When the steam pressure was increased above that given the
mechanical effciency dropped, consequently the design of these
turbines was of such a nature that in order to obtain maximum
effciency at high pressure, it would have been necessary to have
more than one turbine in series.
The effciency of the small turbine units compares with the
effciency obtainable on small impulse turbines running at speeds
where they can be directly connected to pumps and other machinery.
It is obvious, therefore, that the small unit in order to obtain
the same effciency had to operate at from 10,000 to 12,000 revolutions
and it would have been necessary to provide reduction gears between
the steam turbine and the driven unit.
Furthermore, the design of the Tesla turbine could not compete
as far as manufacturing costs with the smaller type of impulse
units. It is also questionable whether the rotor disks, because
of light construction and high stress, would have lasted any
length of time if operating continuously.
The above remarks apply equally to the large turbine running
at 3,600 revolutions. It was found when this unit was dismantled
that the disks had distorted to a great extent and the opinion
was that these disks would ultimately have failed if the unit
had been operated for any length of time.
The gas turbine was never constructed for the reason that
the company was unable to obtain suffcient engineering information
from Mr. Tesla indicating even an approximate design that he
had in mind.
Tesla appears to have walked out on the tests at this stage.
In Milwaukee, however, there was no George Westinghouse to save
the situation. Later, during the twenties, the author asked Tesla
why he had terminated his work with the Allis Chalmers Company.
He replied: "They would not build the turbines as I wished";
and he would not amplify the statement further.
The Allis Chalmers Company later became the pioneer manufacturers
of another type of gas turbine that has been in successful operation
for years.
While the Dahlstrand report may appear to be severely critical
of the Tesla turbine and to reveal fundamental weaknesses in
it not found in other turbines, such is not the case. The report
is, in general, a fair presentation of the results; and the description
of apparent weaknesses merely offers from another viewpoint the
facts which Tesla himself stated about the turbine in his earlier
test--that when employed as a single-stage engine it uses only
about a third of the energy of the steam, and that to utilize
the remainder, it would have to be compounded with a second turbine.
The reference to a centrifugal force of 70,000 pounds resulting
from the high speed of rotation of the rotor, causing damage
to the disks, refers to a common experience with all types of
turbines. This is made clear in a booklet on "The Story
of the Turbine," issued during the past year by the General
Electric Company, in which it is stated:
It [the turbine] had to wait until engineers and scientists
could develop materials to withstand these pressures and speeds.
For example, a single bucket in a modern turbine travelling at
600 miles per hour has a centrifugal force of 90,000 pounds trying
to pull it from its attachment on the bucket wheel and shaft.
. . .
In this raging inferno the high pressure buckets at one end
of the turbine run red hot while a few feet away the large buckets
in the last stages run at 600 miles per hour through a storm
of tepid rain--so fast that the drops of condensed steam cut
like a sand blast.
Dahlstrand reported that diffculties were encountered in the
Tesla turbine from vibration, making it necessary to re-enforce
the disks. That this diffculty is common to all turbines is further
indicated by the General Electric booklet, which states:
Vibration cracked buckets and wheels and wrecked turbines,
sometimes within a few hours and sometimes after years of operation.
This vibration was caused by taking such terrific amounts of
power from relatively light machinery--it some cases as much
as 400 horsepower out of a bucket weighing but a pound or two.
. . .
The major problems of the turbine are four--high temperatures,
high pressures, high speeds and internal vibration. And their
solution lies in engineering, research and manufacturing skill.
These problems are still awaiting their final solution, even
with the manufacturers who have been building turbines for forty
years; and the fact that they were encountered in the Tesla turbine,
and so reported, is not a final criticism of Tesla's invention
in the earliest stages of its development.
There have been whisperings in engineering circles during
the past year or two to indicate a revival of interest in the
Tesla turbine and the possibility that the makers of the Curtis
and Parsons types may extend their lines to include the Tesla
type for joint operation with the others. The development of
new alloys, which can now almost be made to order with desired
qualities of mechanical stability under conditions of high temperature
and great stresses, is largely responsible for this turn of events.
It is a possibility that if the Tesla turbine were constructed
with the benefft of two or more stages, thus giving it the full
operating range of either the Curtis or the Parsons turbine,
and were built with the same beneffts of engineering skill and
modern metallurgical developments as have been lavished on these
two turbines, the vastly greater simplicity of the Tesla turbine
would enable it to manifest greater effciencies of operation
and economies of construction.
FOURTEEN
THE highest honor which the world can confer upon its scholars
is the Nobel Prize founded by Alfred B. Nobel, the Swedish scientist
who gained his wealth through the invention of dynamite. Five
awards are made annually, and each carries an honorarium of about
$40,000 in normal times.
An announcement came from Sweden, in 1912, that Nikola Tesla
and Thomas A. Edison had been chosen to share the 1912 award
in physics. The awards, however, were never made; and the prize
went instead to Gustav Dalen, a Swedish scientist.
The full story of what took place is not known. The correspondence
on the subject is not available. It is definitely established
that Tesla refused to accept the award. Tesla was very much in
need of money at this time and the $20,000, which would have
been his share of the divided award, would have aided him to
continue his work. Other factors, however, had a more potent
influence.
Tesla made a very definite distinction between the inventor
of useful appliances and the discoverer of new principles. The
discoverer of new principles, he stated in conversation with
the author, is a pioneer who opens up new fields of knowledge
into which thousands of inventors flock to make commercial applications
of the newly revealed information. Tesla declared himself a discoverer
and Edison an inventor; and he held the view that placing the
two in the same category would completely destroy all sense of
the relative value of the two accomplishments.
It is quite probable that Tesla was also influenced by the
fact that the Nobel Prize in physics had been awarded to Marconi
three years earlier, a situation that greatly disappointed him.
To have the award go first to Marconi, and then to be asked to
share the award with Edison, was too great a derogation of the
relative value of his work to the world for Tesla to bear without
rebelling.
Tesla was the first, and probably the only, scientist to refuse
this famous prize.
One of the highest honors in the engineering world, too, is
the Edison Medal, founded by unnamed friends of Thomas A. Edison,
and awarded each year by the American Institute of Electrical
Engineers, at its annual convention, for outstanding contribution
to electrical art and science. Usually, the recipients are very
happy to receive the award; but in 1917, when the committee voted
to present the medal to Tesla, a different situation developed.
The chairman of the Edison Medal committee was B. A. Behrend,
who had been one of the first electrical engineers to grasp the
tremendous significance of Tesla's alternating-current discoveries
and their far-reaching importance to every department of the
electrical industry. A few outstanding engineers were able, at
the beginning, to understand the intricacies of new alternating-current
procedures which Tesla's discoveries made of immediate practical
importance; but it was Behrend who developed a beautiful, simple
mathematical technique, known as the "circle diagram,"
which made it possible to work out problems of designing alternating-current
machinery with great ease, and also to understand the complex
phenomena that were taking place within such devices. He published
innumerable articles on the subject in the technical journals
and wrote the standard textbook on the subject, The Induction
Motor. Fame and fortune came to Behrend. He achieved recognition
as one of the outstanding electrical engineers, and was later
elected vice-president of the American Institute of Electrical
Engineers. So important was his work to the commercial world
that he was considered a probable recipient of the Edison Medal.
Behrend had started publishing articles on his circle diagram
discovery in 1896 but he did not meet Tesla until 1901, when
Tesla required a particular type of motor for his World Wireless
plant being built at Wardencliff, L. I., and the task of designing
it was assigned to the engineering department of a manufacturing
company of which Behrend was in charge. After Tesla and Behrend
met, a very close personal friendship developed between the two
men. Behrend was one of the few who thoroughly understood Tesla's
work; and the inventor, lonely in the absence of individuals
with minds of his own caliber, greatly appreciated Behrend's
friendship.
Behrend believed, therefore, that he was rendering Tesla a
token of his highest appreciation when he managed to maneuver
the award of the Edison Medal to him; and he was quite happy
to carry out the mission of bearing the good news to the inventor.
The announcement, however, did not make Tesla happy. He did not
want the Edison Medal, he would not receive it!
Behrend, greatly surprised at Tesla's rebuff, asked him if
he would not explain the situation that caused it.
"Let us forget the whole matter, Mr. Behrend. I appreciate
your good will and your friendship but I desire you to return
to the committee and request it to make another selection for
a recipient. It is nearly thirty years since I announced my rotating
magnetic field and alternating-current system before the Institute.
I do not need its honors and someone else may find them useful."
It would have been impossible for Behrend to deny that the
Institute had indeed failed, over this long period, to honor
the man whose discoveries were responsible for creating the jobs
held by probably more than three quarters of the members of the
Institute, while honors had been distributed to many others for
relatively minor accomplishments. Still, using the privilege
of friendship, Behrend pressed for a further explanation.
"You propose," Tesla replied, "to honor me
with a medal which I could pin upon my coat and strut for a vain
hour before the members and guests of your Institute. You would
bestow an outward semblance of honoring me but you would decorate
my body and continue to let starve, for failure to supply recognition,
my mind and its creative products which have supplied the foundation
upon which the major portion of your Institute exists. And when
you would go through the vacuous pantomime of honoring Tesla
you would not be honoring Tesla but Edison who has previously
shared unearned glory from every previous recipient of this medal."
Behrend, however, after several visits, finally prevailed
upon Tesla to accept the medal.
Custom requires that the recipient of a medal deliver a formal
address. On the occasions, a quarter of a century earlier, when
Tesla was invited to address the Institute, he had had ample
laboratory facilities, and had invested a great deal of time,
effort, thought and money in the preparation of his lectures.
For them, however, he was awarded no honors. Now he was without
laboratory facilities and without adequate financial resources,
although his more mature mind was as filled with ideas and unborn
inventions as it had ever been. He was not required to present
a demonstration lecture. In this matter, however, Tesla was a
victim of his own past performances; and there was an expectancy
that he would emerge from the comparative oblivion which had
enshrouded him for more than a decade, and come, like a master
magician, bearing some wondrous new gifts of invention to the
world.
Tesla attended some of the meetings of the convention, and
Behrend, none too certain about what the medalist might do, took
him in tow following the afternoon session and escorted him to
the Hotel St. Regis, where Tesla now made his home, and where
both donned their formal dress for the evening's ceremonies.
The first event on the evening's program was a private dinner
at the Engineers' Club, tendered by the Institute to the medalist,
who was the guest of honor, and attended by previous recipients
of the Edison Medal, as well as members of the committee and
the offcers of the Institute. It was a gala occasion and represented
an unusual concentration of the world's greatest electrical engineering
talent. Tesla could be relied upon to lend brilliance to any
such occasion, but, while his sparkling conversation added to
the gayety of the group, he was distinctly ill at ease.
The Engineers' Club, on the south side of 40th Street, between
Fifth and Sixth Avenues, faces Bryant Park, the eastern third
of which is occupied by the classical building of the New York
Public Library, facing Fifth Avenue from 40th to 42nd Streets.
The United Engineering Societies Building, an imposing structure
on the north side of 39th, stands almost back-to-back with the
Engineers' Club. By stepping a few feet across an alley, it is
possible to go from one building to the other.
Following the dinner in the Engineers' Club, the brilliant
group at the medalist's dinner made their way across the alley
and proceeded through the crowded lobby of the Engineering Societies
Building, which was abuzz with the multitudinous activities associated
with a convention. The party entered the elevators which carried
them to the large auditorium on the fifth floor where the medal
presentations were to take place.
The auditorium was crowded with an audience that had come
largely from formal dinners held as part of the convention program.
The floor and gallery were filled to capacity. The buzz of animated
conversation died down as there filed onto the stage the outstanding
figures of the electrical world, in "tails" and white
ties, who were to serve as the "wax works" of the ceremonies
and to take some part in the presentation.
As the wax works took their previously assigned chairs, the
stage was set for the opening of the ceremonies. But the opening
did not take place according to schedule. There was consternation
in the group as it was discovered that the chair reserved for
the chief participant in the event was empty.
Tesla was missing!
The side hall, leading off the stage, and the anterooms were
searched, but there was no sign of him. Members of the committee
slipped out to retrace their steps through the lobby and back
to the Club dining room. A man as tall as Tesla could not be
hidden in any group, yet there was not a sign of him in either
building.
The delay in opening the meeting in the auditorium was embarrassing--but
the ceremonies could not be started without Tesla, and where
was he?
It seemed hardly possible that an imposing figure like Tesla,
his height exaggerated by the streamlined contours of his swallow-tailed
formal evening dress, and in the almost worshipful custody of
a score of outstanding intellects, could vanish without any of
them observing his going.
Behrend rushed back from the Club to the auditorium, hopeful
that Tesla had preceded him; but he found that such was not the
case. All the washrooms in both buildings had been searched;
he was concealed in none of them. No one could offer a theory
to account for his disappearance.
None but Behrend knew of Tesla's aversion to accepting the
Edison Medal, yet even he had not the slightest knowledge of
what had become of the famous inventor. He recalled noting the
shadowy walks of Bryant Park opposite the Club as he and Tesla
stepped from the taxicab earlier in the evening, and he wondered
if Tesla had retreated there for some quiet meditation before
the ceremony. He hurried out of the Club.
As Behrend stepped into Bryant Park, the last faint glimmerings
of dusk were visible in the high sky; but in the park the shades
of night were gathering and here and there could be heard the
faint twitterings of birds. The twittering of the birds brought,
like a flash, to Behrend's mind the scene he had observed in
Tesla's apartment at the Hotel St. Regis. In the room which Tesla
had arranged as a reading room and offce was a roll-top desk,
and on top of this were four neat circular baskets, in two of
which pigeons were nestled. Before they left the apartment Tesla
went to the window, which was kept open at all times, whistled
softly, and two more pigeons quickly flew into the room. Just
before leaving for the dinner Tesla fed the pigeons, and having
done so slipped a paper bag filled with something into his pocket.
The possible significance of this latter act did not occur to
Behrend until he heard the twittering of the birds in the park.
With all possible speed Behrend rushed out of the park, down
40th Street toward Fifth Avenue, and up the steps to the plaza
of the Library. Here he beheld a sight that amazed him almost
beyond belief in what his eyes told him. Here was the missing
man. He had recalled that Tesla regularly visited the Library,
St. Patrick's Cathedral, or other places to feed the pigeons.
In the center of a large thin circle of observers stood the
imposing figure of Tesla, wearing a crown of two pigeons on his
head, his shoulders and arms festooned with a dozen more, their
white or pale-blue bodies making strong contrast with his black
suit and black hair, even in the dusk. On either of his outstretched
hands was another bird, while seemingly hundreds more made a
living carpet on the ground in front of him, hopping about and
pecking at the bird seed he had been scattering.
It was Behrend's impulse to rush in, shoo the birds away and,
seizing the missing man, rush him back to the auditorium. Something
caused him to halt. Such an abrupt action seemed almost sacrilegious.
As he hesitated momentarily, Tesla caught sight of him and slowly
shifted the position of one hand to raise a warning finger. As
he did so, however, he moved slowly toward Behrend; and as he
came close, some of the birds flew from Tesla's shoulders to
Behrend's. Apparently sensing a disturbing situation, though,
all the birds flew to the ground.
Appealing to Tesla not to let him down, nor to embarrass those
who were waiting at the meeting, Behrend prevailed upon the inventor
to return to the auditorium. Little did Behrend know how much
more the pigeons meant to Tesla than did the Edison Medal; and
little could anyone have suspected the fantastic secret in Tesla's
life, of which the outer manifestation was his faithful feeding
of his feathered friends. To Behrend it was just another, and
in this case very embarrassing, manifestation of the nonconformity
of genius. Of this, more later.
Returning to the auditorium, Behrend explained in a quick
aside to the president that Tesla had been temporarily ill, but
that his condition was now quite satisfactory. The opening of
the meeting had been delayed about twenty minutes.
In his presentation speech, Behrend pointed out that by an
extraordinary coincidence, it was exactly 29 years ago, to the
very day and hour, that Nikola Tesla presented his original description
of his polyphase alternating-current system. He added:
Not since the appearance of Faraday's "Experimental Researches
in Electricity" has a great experimental truth been voiced
so simply and so clearly as this description of Mr. Tesla's great
discovery of the generation and utilization of polyphase alternating
currents. He left nothing to be done by those who followed him.
His paper contained the skeleton even of the mathematical theory.
Three years later, in 1891, there was given the first great
demonstration, by Swiss engineers, of the transmission of power
at 30,000 volts from Lauffen to Frankfort by means of Mr. Tesla's
system. A few years later this was followed by the development
of the Cataract Construction Company, under the presidency of
our member, Mr. Edward D. Adams, and with the aid of the engineers
of the Westinghouse Company. It is interesting to recall here
tonight that in Lord Kelvin's support to Mr. Adams, Lord Kelvin
recommended the use of direct current for the development of
power at Niagara Falls and for its transmission to Buffalo.
The due appreciation or even enumeration of the results of
Mr. Tesla's invention is neither practicable nor desirable at
this moment. There is a time for all things. Suffce it to say
that, were we to seize and eliminate from our industrial world
the results of Mr. Tesla's work, the wheels of industry would
cease to turn, our electric cars and trains would stop, our towns
would be dark, our mills would be dead and idle. Yes, so far
reaching is this work, that it has become the warp and woof of
industry. . . . His name marks an epoch in the advance of electrical
science. From that work has sprung a revolution in the electrical
art.
We asked Mr. Tesla to accept this medal. We did not do this
for the mere sake of conferring a distinction, or of perpetuating
a name; for so long as men occupy themselves with our industry,
his work will be incorporated in the common thought of our art,
and the name of Tesla runs no more risk of oblivion than does
that of Faraday, or that of Edison.
Nor indeed does this Institute give this medal as evidence
that Mr. Tesla's work has its offcial sanction. His work stands
in no need of such sanction.
No, Mr. Tesla, we beg you to cherish this medal as a symbol
of our gratitude for a new creative thought, the powerful impetus,
akin to revolution, which you have given to our art and to our
science. You have lived to see the work of your genius established.
What shall a man desire more than this? There rings out to us
a paraphrase of Pope's lines on Newton:
"Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night:
"God said, Let Tesla be, and all was light."
No record remains of Tesla's acceptance speech. He did not
prepare a formal address. He had intended to make but a brief
response, but instead he became involved in anecdotal narration
and a preview of the future of electrical science which, in the
absence of the limiting influence of a written copy, became quite
lengthy.
It is doubtful if anyone in the audience, or on the stage,
grasped the full significance of Behrend's words when he said,
"We asked Mr. Tesla to accept this medal." And fewer
still were the members of the Institute who had any conception
of the extent or importance of Tesla's contribution to their
science. His major inventions had been announced thirty years
before. The majority of the engineers present belonged to the
younger generation; and they had been taught from textbooks that
almost completely omitted mention of Tesla's work.
FIFTEEN
THE announcement by Tesla in his latter years that attracted
the greatest amount of attention concerned his discovery of what
has briefly, but not too accurately, been termed a death ray.
Earlier reports had come from Europe of the invention of death
rays, beams of radiation that would cause airships on which they
impinged to burst into flame, the steel bodies of tanks to melt
and the machinery of ships to stop operating, but all gave indications
of being part of the game of diplomatic buncombe.
The prelude to Tesla's death-ray announcement came several
years in advance, in the form of a declaration that he had made
discoveries concerning a new form of power generation which,
when applied, would make the largest existing turbine-dynamo
units in the powerhouses look like pygmies. He made this announcement
in interviews with the press in 1933, and declared that he was
also working on a new kind of generator for the production of
radiation of all kinds and in the greatest intensities. He made
similar announcements the following year.
Both of these announcements were entitled to receive the most
serious consideration, even though they were not accompanied
by experimental evidence, and revealed no technical details.
When Tesla was talking as a scientist he was opposed to wars
on moral, economic and all practical and theoretical grounds.
But, like most scientists, when he stopped thinking as a scientist
and let his emotions rule his thoughts, he found exceptions in
which he felt some wars and situations were justifiable. As a
scientist he was unwilling to have the discoveries of scientists
applied to the purposes of war makers, but when the emotional
phase of his nature took the ruling position he was willing to
apply his genius to devising measures that would prevent wars
by supplying protective devices.
This attitude is exemplified in the following statement, which
he had prepared in the twenties but did not publish:
At present many of the ablest minds are trying to devise expedients
for preventing a repetition of the awful conflict which is only
theoretically ended and the duration and main issues of which
I correctly predicted in an article printed in the Sun of December
20, 1914. The League is not a remedy but, on the contrary, in
the opinion of a number of competent men, may bring about results
just the opposite. It is particularly regrettable that a punitive
policy was adopted in framing the terms of peace because a few
years hence it will be possible for nations to fight without
armies, ships or guns, by weapons far more terrible, to the destructive
action and range of which there is virtually no limit. Any city
at any distance whatever from the enemy can be destroyed by him
and no power on earth can stop him from doing so. If we want
to avert an impending calamity and a state of things which may
transform this globe into an inferno, we should push the development
of flying machines and wireless transmission of energy without
an instant's delay and with all the power and resources of the
nation.
Tesla saw preventive possibilities in his new invention which
embodied "death-ray" characteristics, and which was
made several years after the foregoing statement was written.
He saw it providing a curtain of protection which any country,
no matter how small, could use as a defense against invasion.
While he might offer it as a defensive weapon, however, there
would be nothing to stop military men from using it as a weapon
of offense.
Tesla never gave the slightest hint concerning the principles
under which his device operated.
There are indications, at any rate, that Tesla was working
on a high-potential direct-current system for generating and
transmitting electricity to long distances. Direct current at
very high voltages can be transmitted much more effciently than
alternating current. There has been no practical way of generating
direct current at high voltages. It was because of this that
Tesla's polyphase alternating-current system was adopted for
our present nationwide superpower system, since it made the use
of high voltages practicable. But, despite its effciencies, it
entailed certain losses which could be eliminated if direct current
of suffciently high voltage could be obtained. Such a system
would supersede his alternating-current system but not displace
it.
Direct current, perhaps at several million volts potential,
would be used to transmit current for long distances, perhaps
clear across the continent, providing a kind of express transmission
system, to which the existing alternating-current system would
be tied for local distribution. In addition to the direct-current
transmission system, he appears to have worked out a high-voltage
direct-current generator and a new type of direct-current motor
which would operate without a commutator.
The inventions were starting to dam up in Tesla's mind like
water in a reservoir to which there was no outlet.
Just as he developed his alternating-current system into the
high-frequency, high-potential field of power distribution by
wireless, which he demonstrated at Colorado Springs, so he appears
to have carried his direct-current system forward and linked
it with his alternating-current wireless distribution system,
so that he could use both in a super-interlocking system. As
this remained unapplied, he further evolved it and produced a
plan for operating with it what appears to be a beam system of
wireless transmission of energy which might involve the use of
a stream of particles such as are used in the atom-smashing cyclotron.
As time passed from the latter twenties, through the latter
thirties, the hints which Tesla would drop about his work became
more complicated, and so ambiguous that they aroused skepticism
rather than respect. He would not reveal the nature of his discoveries
until he had secured patents, and he would not apply for patents
until he had made actual working models, and he could not make
the working models because he had no money. Samuel Insull, the
public utilities magnate, had for many years made frequent and
generous contributions to Tesla. They were usually applied to
outstanding debts and were not large enough to enable him to
engage in laboratory research work.
Tesla, however, never exhibited the slightest outward sign
of bitterness over the situation. Instead, he always appeared
in the rle of confirmed optimist, always maintaining a spirit
of hopefulness that he would achieve by his own efforts the money
he needed to carry out his elaborated plans. This is indicated
in a letter he wrote to B. A. Behrend, who had induced him to
accept the Edison Medal, and who was probably in his confidence
to a greater extent than anyone else:
"I am hard at work on those discoveries of mine, I told
you about, from which I hope to derive a sum in eight figures
(not counting the cents, of course) enabling me to erect that
wireless power plant at my own expense. And what I shall accomplish
by that other invention I came specially to see you about, I
do not dare to tell you. This is stated in all seriousness."
The invention about which he dared not speak was probably
his direct-current generating and transmitting system.
In an interview given in 1933, he said his power generator
was of the simplest kind--just a big mass of steel, copper and
aluminum, comprising a stationary and a rotating part, peculiarly
assembled. He was planning, he said, to generate electricity
and transmit it to a distance by his alternating system; but
the direct-current system could also be employed if the heretofore
insuperable diffculties of insulating the transmission line could
be overcome.
A year later he had developed the beam-transmission plan;
and he made an ambiguous statement concerning it which was reported
in the press as news of a "death ray" since the description
seemed to fit into the same mold as those wild and improbable
statements that had come out of Europe some years before. A writer
in the New York World-Telegram described Tesla's plan as "nebulous."
This drew a reply from Tesla July 24, 1934) in which the following
paragraphs appeared:
Still another item which has interested me is a report from
Washington in the World Telegram of July 13, 1934, to the effect
that scientists doubt the death ray effects. I am quite in agreement
with these doubters and probably more pessimistic in this respect
than anybody else, for I speak from long experience.
Rays of the requisite energy cannot be produced, and, then
again, their intensity diminishes with the square of the distance.
Not so the agent I employ, which will enable us to transmit to
a distant point more energy than is possible by any other kind
of ray.
We are all fallible, but as I examine the subject in the light
of my present theoretical and experimental knowledge I am filled
with deep convictions that I am giving to the world something
far beyond the wildest dreams of inventors of all time.
This is the first written statement by Tesla in which he mentions
his "ray"; but I had, as already noted, obtained some
confidential statements from him, during the preceding year or
so, concerning results he hoped to achieve through his new discovery,
the nature of which he kept as a well-protected secret. Three
years later, in 1937, Tesla permitted me to write a news story
for the New York Herald Tribune on his new power-and-ray discovery.
In it I stressed the usefulness of the discovery for delivering
power to ships for travel across the ocean, thus eliminating
the need for carrying fuel supplies, rather than its use as a
weapon for defense or offense.
On this occasion I tried to get him to reveal some technical
details, but he successfully parried every question and gave
no information beyond the statement that the transmitting plant
on shore was one which he would be able to erect at a cost of
about $2,000,000, and the energy would be transmitted by a ray
or beam of infinitesimally small cross section, one hundred thousandth
of a centimeter in diameter. To other newspapers which copied
my story he gave the figure as one millionth of a square centimeter.
Later, I wrote a somewhat critical review of his plan and
sought to draw him out by reviewing the properties of electro-magnetic
radiation in all parts of the spectrum. Finding none that possessed
any known characteristics needed to make his ray practical, I
also reviewed the properties of all known particles of matter,
and stated that none of these would serve his purpose with the
possible exception of the unelectrified particle, the neutron.
He made no revealing response to the article.
At his birthday dinner in 1938, at the Hotel New Yorker, Tesla
described briefly his combination wireless-power transmission
and death ray, adding little to what has already been stated;
and in a later part of his speech he declared that he had developed
a method for interplanetary communication, in which he would
be able to transmit not only communication signals of small strength
but energies involving thousands of horsepower.
On this occasion I asked him if he would be specific concerning
the effects produced, and whether they would be visible from
the earth; for example--could he produce an effect on the moon
suffciently large to be seen by an astronomer watching the moon
through a high-power telescope? To this he replied that he would
be able to produce in the dark region of the thin crescent new
moon an incandescent spot that would glow like a bright star
so that it could be seen without the aid of a telescope.
It would appear probable that Tesla proposed to use for this
purpose the beam he described in connection with his wirelesspower
"death ray." The limitation of the destructive effects
of the beam, which he visualized as two hundred miles, was due
to the fact that the beam had a straight-line trajectory. Tesla
stated that the curvature of the earth set a limit on the distance
of operation, so the two-hundred-mile span of operation gave
an indication of the greatest practical height of a tower from
which the beam could be directed. He expected to use potentials
of about 50,000,000 volts in his system, but whether of direct
or alternating current is unknown.
The only written statement by Tesla on this subject is in
his manuscript of the talk which was delivered, in absentia,
some months later before the Institute of Immigrant Welfare in
response to its honorary citation. In this was included the following
paragraph:
"To go to another subject: I have devoted much of my
time during the year past to perfecting of a new small and compact
apparatus by which energy in considerable amounts can now be
flashed through interstellar space to any distance without the
slightest dispersion. I had in mind to confer with my friend,
George E. Hale, the great astronomer and solar expert, regarding
the possible use of this invention in connection with his own
researches. In the meantime, however, I am expecting to put before
the Institute of France an accurate description of the device
with data and calculations and claim the Pierre Gutzman Prize
of 100,000 francs for means of communication with other worlds,
feeling perfectly sure that it will be awarded to me. The money,
of course, is a trifling consideration, but for the great historical
honor of being the first to achieve this miracle I would be almost
willing to give my life."
SELF-MADE SUPERMAN
SIXTEEN
IT WAS during a period when he was most busily occupied with
his experiments with high-frequency and high-potential currents,
from 1892 to 1894, that Tesla had found time to give serious
thought to yet another type of problem, matter and energy; and
from it he derived what he described as a new physical principle.
This he developed to the point at which he was able to propound
a new dynamic theory of gravity.
While this principle guided much of his thinking, he did not
make any announcements concerning it until close to the end of
his life. Such disclosures as have been made, however, leave
this much obvious: Tesla considered his theory wholly inconsistent
with the theory of relativity, and with the modern theory concerning
the structure of the atom and the mutual interconversion of matter
and energy. Tesla continuously attacked the validity of Einstein's
work; and until two or three years before his death, he ridiculed
the belief that energy could be obtained from matter.
These antagonisms were most unfortunate, as they placed Tesla
in conflict with modern experimental physics. This was totally
unnecessary, for Tesla could undoubtedly have adhered to his
principle and interpreted it so that it was not inconsistent
with the modern theories. The antagonism was probably attributable
to psychological factors rather than scientific inconsistencies.
The only statement Tesla has made concerning his principle
and his theory is that contained in the lecture he prepared for
delivery before the Institute of Immigrant Welfare (May 12, 1938).
In this he stated:
During the succeeding two years [1893 and 1894] of intense
concentration I was fortunate enough to make two far reaching
discoveries. The first was a dynamic theory of gravity, which
I have worked out in all details and hope to give to the world
very soon. It explains the causes of this force and the motions
of heavenly bodies under its influence so satisfactorily that
it will put an end to idle speculation and false conceptions,
as that of curved space. . . .
Only the existence of a field of force can account for the
motions of the bodies as observed, and its assumption dispenses
with space curvature. All literature on this subject is futile
and destined to oblivion. So are all attempts to explain the
workings of the universe without recognizing the existence of
the ether and the indispensable function it plays in the phenomena.
My second discovery was of a physical truth of the greatest
importance. As I have searched the entire scientific records
in more than a half dozen languages for a long time without finding
the least anticipation, I consider myself the original discoverer
of this truth, which can be expressed by the statement: There
is no energy in matter other than that received from the environment.
On my 79th birthday I made a brief reference to it, but its
meaning and significance have become clearer to me since then.
It applies rigorously to molecules and atoms as well as to the
largest heavenly bodies, and to all matter in the universe in
any phase of its existence from its very formation to its ultimate
disintegration
Tesla's mind was inflexible in the matter of his attitude
toward relativity and the modern theories. Had he published his
principle and theory of gravity at the beginning of the century
it would, without doubt, have then received very serious consideration
and perhaps general acceptance, although it is diffcult to make
an intelligent surmise without knowledge of his postulates. If
published, it might have had some influence on Einstein's thinking.
The field of force which Tesla mentions as being necessary to
explain the movements of the planets might have been his contribution
to eliminating the need for the ether which was accomplished
by Einstein's theory. The two theories might have been merged,
in which case there probably would have resulted a harmonious
development of the thinking of the two geniuses.
In this latter case Tesla could very well have shaped his
thinking to see a consistency between his theory that there is
no energy in matter other than that received from its environment,
and the modern viewpoint that all matter consists of energy into
which it is convertible; for when matter is converted to energy,
the energy returns to the environment from whence it came when
the particles were formed.
There appears to be a frustration involved in Tesla's attitude
which could have been resolved by early publication of his theory.
If this had taken place, Tesla's powerful intellect and his strange
ability to solve problems would have been brought to bear on
the problems of atomic physics and he, in turn, would have received
tremendous benefits from the application of the newer knowledge
in the fields in which he was supreme.
Tesla's ability to generate tremendously high voltages would
have been of great assistance in the task of "smashing the
atom." Other scientists, even today, are struggling to produce
currents with a potential of 5,000,000 volts, whereas Tesla,
forty years ago, had generated potentials of 135,000,000 volts.
The inconsistency between Tesla's principle and the picture
of the atom consisting of a small complex nucleus surrounded
by planetary electrons--which inconsistency was more existent
in Tesla's mind than in Nature--caused him to develop an antagonism
to all scientific developments which called for a picture that
differed from the billiard-ball type of atom in vogue in the
eighteen-eighties. To him, a smashed atom was like a smashed
billiard ball.
The electron, however, had a real existence to Tesla. He accepted
it as a kind of sub-atom, a fourth state of matter, as described
by Sir William Crookes, who discovered it. Tesla visualized it
as associated with but not a part of the atom. The electric charge
it carried was entirely distinct from the electron. Electricity,
to him, was a fluid much more highly attenuated than any known
form of matter, and with highly specific properties of its own
for which it was not dependent upon matter. The charge on the
electron was due to a surface layer of electricity covering it,
and it could receive many layers, giving it multiple charges,
all of which could be dissipated. These statements were similar
to those which he had published a half-century before.
According to the modern theory, on the other hand, the electrical
nature of the electron, described as its charge, is a characteristic
inherent in the nature of the energy crystallized about a point
which gives the electron its existence, and the electron is one
of the particles, or units of energy, of which the atom is composed.
In discussing articles by scientists in the field of atomic
physics, Tesla would register his protests that their theories
were untenable and the claims unfounded; and he was particularly
emphatic when experiments in which energy emissions from atoms
were recorded.
"Atomic power is an illusion," he frequently declared.
He furnished several written statements in which he said that
with his currents of several million volts he had, countless
times, smashed uncounted billions of atoms--and he knew that
no emission of energy accompanied the process.
On one occasion Tesla took me to task rather severely for
my failure to publish his statements. I replied: "I withheld
them in order to protect your reputation. You are making too
great a virtue of consistency. It is not necessary that you adhere
to the theories you held as a youth, and I am convinced that
deep down in your heart you hold newer theories that are in harmony
with scientific developments in other fields, but because you
have disagreed with, and attacked some modern theories, you feel
you must be consistent and attack them all. I am convinced that
in the development of your death-ray device your thinking was
along the lines of the modern theory of the structure of the
atom and the nature of matter and energy."
Tesla thereupon let me know in no uncertain terms that he
held very definite ideas concerning efforts on the part of others
to do his thinking for him. This conversation took place about
1935; and I did not hear from him for many months. I observed,
however, that in his later conversations he was much less dogmatic
concerning modern theories, and a few years later he stated that
he was planning an apparatus which would make possible a definite
testing of the modern theory of atomic structure, with the expectation
that his new power system and energy beam would release atomic
energy more effectively than any device then in use by physicists.
Having endorsed, finally, the belief that man will be able
to smash, transmute, create or destroy atoms, and control vast
amounts of energy, he waxed poetic on the subject. He extended
man's control over atoms and energy to a cosmic scale, and saw
him shaping the universe according to our desires. In an unpublished
article, entitled "Man's Greatest Achievement," he
wrote:
There manifests itself in the fully developed being--Man--a
desire mysterious, inscrutable and irresistible: to imitate nature,
to create, to work himself the wonders he perceives. Inspired
to this task he searches, discovers and invents, designs and
constructs, and covers with monuments of beauty, grandeur and
awe, the star of his birth. He descends into the bowels of the
globe to bring forth its hidden treasures and to unlock its immense
imprisoned energies for his use. He invades the dark depths of
the ocean and the azure regions of the sky. He peers into the
innermost nooks and recesses of molecular structure and lays
bare to his gaze worlds infinitely remote. He subdues and puts
to his service the Werce, devastating spark of Prometheus, the
titanic forces of the waterfall, the wind and the tide. He tames
the thundering bolt of Jove and annihilates time and space. He
makes the great Sun itself his obedient toiling slave. Such is
his power and might that the heavens reverberate and the whole
earth trembles by the mere sound of his voice.
What has the future in store for this strange being, born
of a breath, of perishable tissue, yet immortal, with his powers
fearful and divine? What magic will be wrought by him in the
end? What is to be his greatest deed, his crowning achievement?
Long ago he recognized that all perceptible matter comes from
a primary substance, or a tenuity beyond conception, filling
all space, the Akasa or luminiferous ether, which is acted upon
by the life-giving Prana or creative force, calling into existence,
in never ending cycles, all things and phenomena. The primary
substance, thrown into infinitesimal whirls of prodigious velocity,
becomes gross matter; the force subsiding, the motion ceases
and matter disappears, reverting to the primary substance.
Can Man control this grandest, most awe-inspiring of all processes
in nature? Can he harness her inexhaustible energies to perform
all their functions at his bidding, more still cause them to
operate simply by the force of his will?
If he could do this, he would have powers almost unlimited
and supernatural. At his command, with but a slight effort on
his part, old worlds would disappear and new ones of his planning
would spring into being. He could fix, solidify and preserve
the ethereal shapes of his imagining, the fleeting visions of
his dreams. He could express all the creations of his mind on
any scale, in forms concrete and imperishable. He could alter
the size of this planet, control its seasons, guide it along
any path he might choose through the depths of the Universe.
He could cause planets to collide and produce his suns and stars,
his heat and light. He could originate and develop life in all
its infinite forms.
To create and to annihilate material substance, cause it to
aggregate in forms according to his desire, would be the supreme
manifestation of the power of Man's mind, his most complete triumph
over the physical world, his crowning achievement, which would
place him beside his Creator, make him fulfill his ultimate destiny.
Tesla, in his eighties, was still manifesting the superman
complex, and on even more elaborate a scale than when in his
twenties. In his earlier dreams his visions were terrestrial,
but in later life they were extended to embrace the entire universe.
Even on the cosmic scale, however, Tesla spoke in terms of
matter and energy. These two entities, according to his reasoning,
were suffcient to explain all observed phenomena, a situation
which militated against the discovery of any new agencies.
The civilizations of the ancient world knew nothing of electricity
and magnetism; the controlled manifestations of these two phases
of a single force-entity have provided us with a new civilization
and a new cultural outlook on life, as well as broadened horizons
within the life sphere. There is no reason why we should not
look forward to the discovery of new forces which are as different
from electricity as electricity is from the winds of the air
and the waves of the ocean. If inadequate explanations of vital
phenomena are accepted as satisfactory, embracing extravagant
extensions of known forces, the way is closed to the discovery
of unknown forces and the opening of any new realms of knowledge.
This was the limitation which the science of the last quarter
of the past century placed upon itself; and Tesla's philosophy
was a product of that period. It was diffcult for him to reshape
it in his later years.
The memory departments of most individuals' brains are like
offce filing systems, an excellent dumping ground for everything
that comes along--but try to find a filed item later. Tesla's
powers of memorizing were prodigious. A quick reading of a page
gave him a permanent record of it; he could always recall before
his eyes a photographic record of it to be read, and could study
at his convenience. Study, for Tesla, was a far different process
than for the average person. He had no need for a reference library;
he could consult in his mind any page of any textbook he had
read, any formula, equation, or item in a table of logarithms,
and it would flash before his eyes. He could recite scores of
books, complete from memory. The saving in time which this made
possible in research work was tremendous.
This strange faculty of vision was supernormal but entirely
natural and was due, probably, to a structural characteristic
in his brain which provided a direct channel between the memory
and the visual areas of his cerebral hemispheres. It provided
him with a very useful new sense.
The human brain is made up of two sections, the right and
left sides, each of which, in some of its phases, is a complete
brain; and both halves function together as a single unit. There
are many layers in the brain parallel with its surface, each
connected to the others by complex nerve fibers, like threads
sewing together the layers of an onion. The outer layer seems
to be directly associated with our consciousness. The surface
is divided into specialized areas, There is a band across the
mid-section of each hemisphere from ear to ear over the top of
the brain, devoted to the senses, and here are separate areas
for the sensory faculties--sight, hearing, taste, smell--while
near by are regions for the motor or muscular activities of the
various parts of the body. The back lobe of the brain appears
to be the home of the memory and the front lobe of some higher
faculties of integration, the nature of which we do not as yet
understand.
In normal processes of seeing, the eye forms a picture of
an object on the retina, a screen on the back of the eyeball.
The retina is supplied with thousands of nerve endings all packed
together like stalks of asparagus in a bunch. The tip ends are
provided with photosensitive processes, and when light strikes
any one of them it transmits over the optic nerve a signal to
the brain which is recorded as a visual response in the sight
area of each half of the brain. By cooperation of all the nerve
endings, the complete picture seen is transmitted. The actual
seeing, then, is done in the brain and not in the eye. When an
object is seen by the brain, a record of that visual experience
is transmitted from the sight area of the brain to the memory
center in the back part of the brain; and similar records are
sent by all other sensory centers. Ordinarily this is a one-way
process, the stimuli going in the direction of the memory and
nothing coming back to the sensory area. If this were not so,
our sense areas of the brain would be continuously reenacting
old experiences and mixing them with the new, incoming experiences,
causing annoying confusion.
The memory area contains a complete record of all sensory
experiences we have had. In our thinking processes we use some
little-understood mechanism for connecting together items stored
in the memory area to produce useful combinations or relationships,
or, in other words, new ideas. The memory appears to function
on a subconscious level but we seem to be able to activate fibers
that reach down to the desired strata at the right point to connect
the memory level with the consciousness level. In this way we
can recall experiences, but this experience of memory is far
different from the original experience of sight out of which
the original memory record was made.
If, however, in this process of recollection, the nerve fiber
linking the sight area of the brain and the memory area were
to be activated, then we would see again by the sharp processes
of vision the object which caused the memory record we are trying
to recollect.
The act of creative thinking seems to consist of assembling
two or more memory records of sensory experiences into a combination
which possesses entirely new characteristics that were not apparent
in the component parts. If the nerve linkage just referred to
were to operate in a two-way process with the visual area, then
we would be able to see the new creation as if it were a really
existing object seen by the eye, although the whole operation
was limited to the brain.
This process is hypothetically the one which took place in
Tesla's brain and gave him tremendously greater powers of creative
work than are possible to the ordinary individual. Was this conceivably
a new in-vention made by Mother Nature and tried out by her on
Tesla?
Tesla himself never understood the neurological, or physiological,
processes underlying this strange faculty. To him it was an absolutely
real experience to see in front of him as solid objects the subjects
of his creative thoughts. He believed that the image of the thing
he saw was sent back from the brain along the optic nerve to
the eye, and that it existed as a picture on the retina where,
by some suitable means, it could be seen by others--or that by
means of adequate amplifying devices, such as are used in television,
it could be projected on a screen. He even proposed such devices.
(The apparent flaw in his reasoning followed on his mistake in
thinking that he was doing this supernormal seeing with his eye,
whereas the process was confined to his brain; and the reflex
action from the memory centers stopped at the visual centers
instead of, as he believed, being continued forward through the
optical nerve to the retina.)
Tesla described his experience with this strange faculty in
an interview with M. K. Wisehart, published under the title "Making
Your Imagination Work for You" in the American Magazine,
April, 1921. He stated:
During my boyhood I had suffered from a peculiar affliction
due to the appearance of images, which were often accompanied
by strong flashes of light. When a word was spoken, the image
of the object designated would present itself so vividly to my
vision that I could not tell whether what I saw was real or not.
. . . Even though I reached out and passed my hand through it,
the image would remain fixed in space.
In trying to free myself from these tormenting appearances,
I tried to concentrate my thoughts on some peaceful, quieting
scene I had witnessed. This would give me momentary relief; but
when I had done it two or three times the remedy would begin
to lose its force. Then I began to take mental excursions beyond
the small world of my actual knowledge. Day and night, in imagination,
I went on journeys--saw new places, cities, countries, and all
the time I tried hard to make these imaginary things very sharp
and clear in my mind. I imagined myself living in countries I
had never seen, and I made imaginary friends, who were very dear
to me and really seemed alive.
This I did constantly until I was seventeen, when my thoughts
turned seriously to invention. Then, to my delight, I found I
could visualize with the greatest facility. I needed no models,
drawings, or experiments. I could picture them all in my mind.
. . .
By that faculty of visualizing, which I learned in my boyish
efforts to rid myself of annoying images, I have evolved what
is, I believe, a new method of materializing inventive ideas
and conceptions. It is a method which may be of great usefulness
to any imaginative man, whether he is an inventor, businessman
or artist.
Some people, the moment they have a device to construct or
any piece of work to perform, rush at it without adequate preparation,
and immediately become engrossed in details, instead of the central
idea. They may get results, but they sacrifice quality.
Here, in brief, is my own method: After experiencing a desire
to invent a particular thing, I may go on for months or years
with the idea in the back of my head. Whenever I feel like it,
I roam around in my imagination and think about the problem without
any deliberate concentration. This is a period of incubation.
Then follows a period of direct effort. I choose carefully
the possible solutions of the problem. I am considering, and
gradually center my mind on a narrowed field of investigation.
Now, when I am deliberately thinking of the problem in its specific
features, I may begin to feel that I am going to get the solution.
And the wonderful thing is, that if I do feel this way, then
I know I have really solved the problem and shall get what I
am after.
The feeling is as convincing to me as though I already had
solved it. I have come to the conclusion that at this stage the
actual solution is in my mind subconsciously, though it may be
a long time before I am aware of it consciously.
Before I put a sketch on paper, the whole idea is worked out
mentally. In my mind I change the construction, make improvements,
and even operate the device. Without ever having drawn a sketch
I can give the measurements of all parts to workmen, and when
completed all these parts will fit, just as certainly as though
I had made the actual drawings. It is immaterial to me whether
I run my machine in my mind or test it in my shop.
The inventions I have conceived in this way have always worked.
In thirty years there has not been a single exception. My first
electric motor, the vacuum tube wireless light, my turbine engine
and many other devices have all been developed in exactly this
way.
That Tesla believed his mental visualizations brought images
from his brain to the back of his eye is indicated by some statements
he made in his famous lecture before the National Electric Light
Association convention at St. Louis, in March, 1893, when announcing
his discovery of radio. These statements about vision had no
relationship to the subject of the lecture, and the fact that
he interjected them indicated that his experiences with this
strange power had a powerful influence on his inventive thinking.
He said:
It can be taken as a fact, which the theory of the action
of the eye implies, that for each external impression, that is
for each image produced on the retina, the ends of the visual
nerves, concerned in the conveyance of the impressions to the
mind, must be under a peculiar stress or in a vibratory state.
It now does not seem improbable that, when by the power of thought
an image is evoked, a distinct reflex action, no matter how weak,
is exerted upon certain ends of the visual nerves, and therefore
upon the retina. Will it ever be within human power to analyze
the condition of the retina, when disturbed by thought or reflex
action, by the help of some optical or other means of such sensitiveness
that a clear idea of its state might be obtained? If this were
possible, then the problem of reading one's thoughts with precision,
like the characters of an open book, might be much easier to
solve than many problems belonging to the domain of positive
physical science, in the solution of which many, if not the majority,
of scientific men implicitly believe.
Helmholtz has shown that the fundi of the eye are themselves
luminous, and he was able to see in total darkness the movements
of his arm by the light of his own eyes. This is one of the most
remarkable experiments recorded in the history of science, and
probably only a few men could satisfactorily repeat it, for it
is very likely that the luminosity of the eyes is associated
with uncommon activity of the brain and great imaginative power.
It is fluorescence of brain action, as it were.
Another fact having a bearing on this subject, which has probably
been noted by many, since it is stated in popular expressions,
but which I cannot recollect to have found chronicled as a positive
result of observation is that, at times, when a sudden idea or
image presents itself to the intellect, there is a painful sensation
of luminosity produced in the eye observed even in broad daylight.
Forty years later Tesla was still interested in the possibility
of capturing a photographic record of thoughts. He stated in
interviews that if his theory were correct--that thoughts are
recorded on the retina--it should be possible to photograph what
is revealed on this screen in the eye, and project enlarged images
of it.
There is nothing illogical about Tesla's reasoning concerning
his strange faculty of visualizing and the possibility of finding
a corresponding image on the retina. There is a bare possibility
that in an extreme case, as was his, a reflex arc may have extended
from the brain to the retina; but the probability that it did
not is stronger. If he had possessed the ability to take others
into his confidence in his experiments, he would have been able
to stage some simple tests in the laboratory of an ophthalmologist
which would have given him some definite experimental evidence
to support or dispose of his theories, as far as photographic
thought images were concerned.
About 1920 tesla had prepared, although he never published,
an announcement of what he declared was "An Astounding Discovery."
It involved factors which he called "cosmic"; but it
likewise presented situations which the practicers of voodoo
in Haiti, and other intellectually unveneered portions of the
human race, would receive with perfect understanding. Since Tesla,
one of the most highly civilized individuals, could evolve this
conception, it is probable that other supercultured individuals
or groups could find it in harmony with their ideas and experiences.
It involves, however, a situation in which the soulless "matter
and energy" automaton (to which status we have seen Tesla
relegate human beings) is able to judge ethical values, and,
like a pontiff presiding over a court of morals, inflict punishment
for transgressions.
Here is Tesla's description of his "astounding discovery":
While I have failed to obtain any evidence in support of the
contentions of psychologists and spiritualists, I have proved
to my complete satisfaction the automatism of life, not only
through continuous observation of individual actions, but even
more conclusively, through certain generalizations. These amount
to a discovery which I consider of the greatest moment to human
society and on which I shall briefly dwell.
I got the first inkling of this astounding truth when I was
still a very young man, but for many years I interpreted what
I noted simply as coincidences. Namely, whenever either myself
or a person to whom I was attached, or a cause to which I was
devoted, was hurt by others in a particular way, which might
be best popularly characterized as the most unfair imaginable,
I experienced a singular and undefinable pain which, for want
of a better term, I have qualified as "cosmic," and
shortly thereafter, and invariably, those who have inflicted
it came to grief. After many such cases I confided this to a
number of friends, who had the opportunity to convince themselves
of the truth of the theory which I have gradually formulated
and which may be stated in the following words.
Our bodies are of similar construction and exposed to the
same external influences. This results in likeness of response
and concordance of the general activities on which all our social
and other rules and laws are based. We are automata entirely
controlled by the forces of the medium, being tossed about like
corks on the surface of the water, but mistaking the resultant
of the impulses from the outside for free will.
The movements and other actions we perform are always life-preservative
and though seemingly quite independent from one another, we are
connected by invisible links. So long as the organism is in perfect
order it responds accurately to the agents that prompt it, but
the moment there is some derangement in any individual, his self-preservative
power is impaired.
Everybody understands, of course, that if one becomes deaf,
has his eyesight weakened, or his limbs injured, the chances
for his continued existence are lessened. But this is also true,
and perhaps more so, of certain defects in the brain which deprive
the automaton, more or less, of that vital quality and cause
it to rush into destruction.
A very sensitive and observant being, with his highly developed
mechanism all intact, and acting with precision in obedience
to the changing conditions of the environment, is endowed with
a transcending mechanical sense, enabling him to evade perils
too subtle to be directly perceived. When he comes in contact
with others whose controlling organs are radically faulty, the
sense asserts itself and he feels the "cosmic" pain.
The truth of this has been borne out in hundreds of instances
and I am inviting other students of nature to devote attention
to this subject, believing that, through combined and systematic
effort, results of incalculable value to the world will be attained.
Tesla's uncommunicative nature concerning his own intimate
experiences has undoubtedly deprived the world of many interesting
stories. He was unquestionably an abnormal individual, and of
a type that does have what are known as "psychic experiences."
He was emphatic in his denial that he ever had experiences of
that sort; yet he has related incidents that clearly belong in
the psychic category. He seemed to be fearful that an admission
of psychic experiences would cause him to be misunderstood as
supporting spiritualism, or theories that something operates
in life other than matter and energy.
Whenever he was asked for his philosophy of life, he would
elaborate a theory that the human body is a meat machine which
responds to external forces.
One evening in New York, as Tesla and the author sat in the
lobby of the Hotel Governor Clinton, the inventor discussed his
meat-machine theory. It was a materialistic philosophy typical
of the Victorian era. We are, he held, composed of only those
things which are identified in the test tube and weighed in the
balance. We have only those properties which we receive from
the atoms of which our bodies are constructed. Our experiences,
which we call life, are a complex mixture of the responses of
our component atoms to the external forces of our environment.
Such a philosophy has the virtue of simplicity and brevity
of presentation; and it lends itself readily to being propounded
with a positiveness that reacts on the propounder, and transforms
his attitude into one of dogmatism in which emphatically expressed
opinion is often confused with and substituted for factual evidence.
"I don't believe a word of your theory," I replied
to Tesla's exposition, "and, thank God, I am convinced you
don't believe a word of it either. The strongest proof I have
that your theory is totally inadequate is that Tesla exists.
Under your theory we could not have a Tesla. Tesla possesses
a creative mind and, in his accomplishments, stands high above
all other men. If your theory were correct, we would either all
be geniuses like Tesla or we would all be mental mediocrities
living in these meat machines you describe, all responding in
the same way to the uniform, inanimate and uncreative external
forces."
"But we are all meat machines," replied Tesla, "and
it happens that I am a much more sensitive machine than other
people and I receive impressions to which they are inert, and
I can both understand and interpret these impressions. I am simply
a finer automaton than others," he insisted.
"This difference, which you admit between yourself and
others, Dr. Tesla, completely disproves your theory, from my
viewpoint," I responded. "Your sensitiveness would
be a purely random incident. In the integration of this randomness,
with respect to all individuals, all of us would probably once,
possibly very much more frequently, rise to the height of manifesting
genius as you have done all your life. Even though the strokes
of genius would manifest intermittently, all such individuals
would receive the permanent rating as geniuses. Genius does not
manifest, even intermittently, in all of us, so your meat-machine
theory appears, to me, untenable, If you were really frank with
me, you would tell me of many experiences you have had, strange
experiences, that you could not explain, that do not fit into
your meat-machine theory, and which you have been afraid to discuss
with anyone for fear they would misunderstand you and perhaps
ridicule you. I, however, will not find these experiences strange
and beyond understanding, and one of these days you will open
up and tell me about them."
As happened whenever I disagreed with him, after that evening
I did not see Tesla for a while. In due time, however, I had
a great many telephone conversations with him. Our discussion
seemed to have brought about a change in his attitude toward
me; and the next time I saw him he confided, "Mr. O'Neill,
you understand me better than anyone else in the world."
I mention this to indicate the correctness of my belief that
there was another Tesla hidden within that synthetic individual,
the superman, which Tesla sought to pass off on the public as
his real self.
I did not, at this time, know about Tesla's "astounding
discovery," or of some of his experiences about which I
later learned. Had I known of these, my discussion with him could
have been more specific.
SEVENTEEN
ALTHOUGH Tesla thoroughly disbelieved in psychical phenomena,
as previously indicated, he had many experiences which belong
in this category; and he neither discredited nor disavowed their
reality. Such paradoxes were common in all matters concerning
him.
Tesla, for example, completely rejected telepathy as a phase
of psychical phenomena, but he was firmly convinced that mind
could communicate directly with mind. When asked about his belief
in telepathy by a newspaper reporter in the early nineties, Tesla
replied: "What is usually taken as evidence of the existence
of telepathy is mere coincidence. But the working of the human
mind through observation and reason interests and amazes me.
And then he added the paradoxical statement: "Suppose I
make up my mind to murder you. In an instant you would know it.
Now, isn't that wonderful enough? By what process does the mind
get at all this?"
Reduced to its simplest terms, this interview states: Psychical
telepathy does not exist as a reality; but the transmission of
thought from mind directly to mind is a wonderful phenomenon,
worthy of scientific study.
The paradox here is due to the fact that, at the period in
which Tesla was speaking, all psychical phenomena were supposed
to be mediated by the intervention of spirits, or souls of the
departed. Such a theory had no place in Tesla's philosophy, since
he did not believe in immortality and felt that he could explain
all phenomena in terms of matter and energy; and the spirit was
supposed to lie beyond both of these categories. Thinking, however,
was, according to Tesla's theories, something which resulted
from the interaction of matter and energy in the brain; and as
this process probably produced waves in the ether, there was
no reason why the waves sent out by one mind should not be received
by another, with resulting transfer of thought.
Tesla would not discuss anything bordering on psychical experiences
outside the circle of his relatives, however. On one occasion,
though, he probably saved the lives of three of his friends through
a premonition; and he related the incident to his nephew, Sava
N. Kosanovich, who thus retells it:
"I heard from Tesla that he had premonitions. He explained
his in a mechanical way, saying he was a sensitive receiver that
registers any disturbance. He declared that each man is like
an automaton which reacts to external impressions.
"He told me of one instance in which he had held a big
party here in New York for some of his friends who planned to
take a certain train for Philadelphia. He felt a powerful urge
not to let the friends depart as planned and forcibly detained
them so that they missed the train on which they had planned
to travel. This train met with an accident in which there were
a large number of casualties. This happened sometime in the 90's.
"When his sister Angelina was ill, and died, he sent
a telegram in which he said: "I had a vision that Angelina
was arising and disappearing. I sensed all is not well."
Tesla himself tells a most remarkable story of two supernormal
events, in an unpublished manuscript. It records a situation
in which, owing to overwork, his strange phenomenon of visualization
disappeared, or died, and was reborn. In coming back, it grew
up quickly by repeating the visualization of events of earliest
childhood and successively re-enacting later events, until it
brought him to the actual moment and capped the climax by then
presenting a visualization of an event that had not yet taken
place.
The story of this experience, as told by Tesla:
I will tell of an extraordinary experience which may be of
interest to students of psychology. I had produced a striking
phenomenon with my grounded transmitter and was endeavoring to
ascertain its true significance in relation to the currents propagated
through the earth. It seemed a hopeless undertaking and for more
than a year I worked unremittingly but in vain. This profound
study so entirely absorbed me that I became forgetful of everything
else, even of my undermined health. At last, as I was on the
point of breaking down, nature applied the preservative, inducing
lethal sleep.
Regaining my senses, I realized with consternation that I
was unable to visualize scenes from my life except those of infancy,
the very first ones that had entered my consciousness. Curiously
enough, these appeared before my vision with startling distinctness
and afforded me welcome relief. Night after night, when retiring,
I would think of them and more and more of my previous existence
was revealed. The image of my mother was always the principal
figure in the spectacle that slowly unfolded, and a consuming
desire to see her again gradually took possession of me.
This feeling grew so strong that I resolved to drop all work
and satisfy my longing. But I found it too hard to break away
from the laboratory and several months elapsed during which I
succeeded in reviving all the impressions of my past life up
to the spring of 1892.
In the next picture that came out of the mist of oblivion,
I saw myself at the Hotel de la Paix in Paris just coming to
from one of my peculiar sleeping spells caused by prolonged exertion
of the brain. Imagine the pain and distress I felt when it flashed
upon my mind that a dispatch was handed to me at that very moment
bearing the sad news that my mother was dying.
It was especially remarkable that all during this period of
partially obliterated memory I was fully alive to everything
touching on the subject of my research. I could recall the smallest
details and the least insignificant observations in my experiments
and even recite pages of texts and complex mathematical formulae.
This was a prevision of the event which took place immediately
after his Paris lecture, as described in an earlier chapter,
in which he rushed home in time to see his mother just before
she died.
The second incident also concerns the death of his mother,
and is told in another connection in the same manuscript. He
states:
For many years I have endeavored to solve the enigma of death
and watched eagerly for every kind of spiritual indication. But
only once in the course of my existence have I had an experience
which, momentarily, impressed me as supernatural. It was at the
time of my mother's death.
I had become completely exhausted by pain and long vigilance
and one night was carried to a building about two blocks from
our home. As I lay helpless there, I thought that if my mother
died while I was away from her bedside she would surely give
me a sign.
Two or three months before I was in London in company with
my late friend, Sir William Crookes, when spiritualism was discussed
and I was under full sway of these thoughts. I might not have
paid attention to other men but was susceptible to his arguments
as it was his epochal work on radiant matter, which I had read
as a student, that made me embrace the electrical career.
I reflected that the conditions for a look into the beyond
were most favorable, for my mother was a woman of genius and
particularly excelling in the powers of intuition. During the
whole night every fiber of my brain was strained in expectancy,
but nothing happened until early in the morning when I fell into
a sleep or perhaps a swoon, and saw a cloud carrying angelic
figures of marvelous beauty, one of whom gazed upon me lovingly
and gradually assumed the features of my mother. The apparition
slowly floated across the room and vanished and I was awakened
by an indescribably sweet song of many voices. In that instant
a certitude, which no words can express, came upon me that my
mother had just died. And that was true.
I was unable to understand the tremendous weight of the painful
knowledge I received in advance and wrote a letter to Sir William
Crookes while still under the domination of these impressions
and in poor bodily health.
When I recovered I sought for a long time the external cause
of this strange manifestation and to my great relief, I succeeded
after many months of fruitless effort. I had seen the painting
of a celebrated artist, representing allegorically one of the
seasons in the form of a cloud with a group of angels which seem
to actually float in the air, and this had struck me forcibly.
It was exactly the same that appeared in my dream with the exception
of my mother's likeness. The music came from the choir in the
church nearby at the early mass of Easter morning, explaining
everything satisfactorily in conformity to scientific facts.
This "scientific" explanation by Tesla is, of course,
totally unscientific. It ignores the three principal facts: one,
that he had what he identified at the time as a supernormal experience
that brought with it a certitude that words could not describe;
two, that this experience conveyed a revelation of his mother's
death, which he understood as such; and, three, that the event
took place at the exact time of her death. The mechanism by which
the phenomenon was produced utilized the memories stored in Tesla's
mind (of the painting, for example) as the vehicle by which the
information could be presented to him in understandable, though
symbolic, form. In addition, there was the premonition given
several months previously as the climax of an extended phenomenon
involving his mother.
Tesla's efforts to explain away "scientifically"
everything of a psychical or spiritual nature, and the inadequate
explanations which were satisfactory to him for this purpose,
are an indication of a conflict that was taking place within
him in an effort to reconcile the purely materialistic "matter
and energy" superman, into which he fashioned himself, with
the underlying individual into which was born a great capacity
for manifesting a deep spiritual insight into life, but which
he suppressed.
One of the strangest luncheon parties Tesla ever staged was
that given by him to a prize fighter, Fritzie Zivic. It was served
in one of the private dining rooms of the Hotel New Yorker in
1940. Fritzie Zivic was scheduled to take part in a prize fight
at Madison Square Garden for the welterweight championship, and
the luncheon was held at noon on the day of the battle.
Fritzie was one of six brothers, all of whom were either professional
prize fighters or wrestlers. They lived at Pittsburgh where their
father conducted a beer saloon. They were all born in Pittsburgh,
but were the sons of parents, natives of Yugoslavia, whose diffcult-to-pronounce
Slavonic name was shortened to Zivic by the brothers for their
professional activities.
Tesla had all six of the brothers as his guests. The only
other guests were William L. Laurence, science writer of the
New York Times, and the author.
Three very different types of individuals were gathered around
the table. The six fighting brothers were all fine physical specimens.
They averaged medium height but their powerful, chunky bodies,
deep chests and broad shoulders made them seem rather short.
All were clear eyed, had clear complexions and clean-cut features,
were conservatively dressed in sack suits, and wore white linen
collars. The two newspapermen presented an appearance in strong
contrast with the fighters, and in contrast with all the others
was Tesla. Laurence, with his great mop of jet black hair combed
straight back, looked more like a musician.
Tesla was seated at the head of the table. At his right sat
Fritzie and next to him ranged three of his brothers. Opposite
them sat two other brothers and Mr. Laurence. The author sat
at the far end of the table.
Tesla did not arrange one of his famous duck dinners for this
occasion--he had other plans. As soon as the party was seated,
Tesla stood up. The broad, stocky Fritzie looked like a pygmy
by comparison. Tesla was attired in a light-weight, tight-fitting,
black, single-breasted sack suit which made him look more slender
than usual. He had lost considerable weight in the preceding
year, and this accentuated the sharp, bony contour which his
face had taken on in his latter years. His face, of the ascetic
type, now was crowned with thinning locks of silvery white hair.
His long slender hands, delicately shaped, started to wave over
the seated prize fighter, who smiled up at the strange figure
towering above him.
"I am ordering for you a nice thick beefsteak, two inches
thick, so that you will have plenty of strength tonight to win
the championship by a . . . "
The fighter had both hands up, trying to interrupt the gesticulating
figure of the scientist.
"No," protested Fritzie, "I am in training
and I cannot eat a steak today."
"You listen to me," shouted the insistent voice
of Tesla, whose swinging arms and swaying body made him appear
to be going through the antics of a cheer leader at a football
game. "I'll tell you how to train. You will train on beefsteak.
I am going to get you a beefsteak two inches thick and dripping
with blood so that you will be able to . . ."
The five brothers now joined Fritzie in his protest.
"He can't eat beefsteak today. He would lose the fight,
Dr. Tesla," they chorused.
"No, he won't lose the fight," shot back Tesla.
"You must think of the heroes of our national Serbian poetry.
They were redblooded men and mighty fighters. You too must fight
for the glory of Serbia, and you need beefsteak dripping in blood
to do it!"
Tesla had worked himself into a fine frenzy and was waving
his arms and punching his palms as if he were at the ringside
at an exciting moment in the battle. His frenzy was lost on Fritzie
and his brother pugilists. They were unmoved. Fritzie replied:
"I will win, Dr. Tesla. I will fight for the glory of
Yugoslavia and when the referee gives me the decision and I speak
into the microphone I will also say I fought for Dr. Tesla--but
no beefsteak today, Dr. Tesla, please."
"All right, Fritzie, you can have whatever you want,"
Tesla agreed, "but your brothers will have their beefsteak."
"No, Dr. Tesla," replied the eldest brother, "if
Fritzie cannot have beefsteak neither will we. We will eat whatever
he eats."
Fritzie ordered scrambled eggs on toast, with bacon, and a
glass of milk. The five brothers gave duplicate orders and the
two newspapermen did likewise.
Tesla laughed heartily. "So that is what you do your
fighting on today," he said between chuckles.
For himself, the blood-thirsty 83-year-old scientist ordered
"A dish of hot milk"; and on this diet he managed to
summon a tremendous amount of energy during the meal which he
directed toward urging Fritzie to give his opponent "everything
you've got" and "make it a knockout in the first round."
It was a strange dinner. Despite the greatly outnumbering
pugilists with their hard set faces and chunky powerful bodies,
the thin, bony faced, sharp featured, almost emaciated scientist
with his sunken eyes, and his thin, silky silver hair, easily
dominated the scene. Everyone was at ease despite the brothers'
anticipation of Fritzie's impending battle and Tesla's enthusiasm.
Yet, in spite of the fact that everyone was relaxed, there was
an eerie kind of tenseness linking the peculiar assemblage. Once
I became conscious of the situation, I watched developments with
interest. I had experienced such conditions previously but never
under such circumstances as these.
Mr. Laurence, of the Times, was seated at my right. He began
to act a bit restless while only halfway through the meal. Several
times he looked under the table. He in turn rubbed his ankle,
his knee, his calf. He shifted his position. He rubbed his elbow
and later his forearm. I managed to catch his eye.
"Anything bothering you, Bill?" I asked, knowing
full well what was happening.
"There is something strange going on here," he replied.
A couple of minutes later he again reached, and looked under
the table.
"Feel anything?" I asked.
"Yes," he replied, seemingly a bit worried. "Something
hot is touching me at different spots. I can feel the heat but
I can't see anything that is doing it. Do you feel it, too?"
he asked.
"Don't worry about it," I assured him. "I know
what it is, and will tell you all about it later. Just make as
close observations as you can now."
The phenomenon continued until the party broke up. On our
way back to our offces, I explained to Mr. Laurence.
"You have often laughed at me for my gullibility in accepting
the reality of the so-called psychic experiences," I said.
"Now you have had one. As soon as that luncheon got well
under way, after Dr. Tesla's fiery outburst had quieted down,
I sensed a peculiar tenseness in the air around me. At times
the atmosphere seemed webby to my face and hands, so I suspected
something unusual might happen.
"That gathering was a perfect set-up for a psychic seance,
and if it was held in the dark there is no telling what we might
have observed. Here were six powerfully built men, closely in
rapport with each other, all filled to the bursting point with
vital energy waiting for an event that would release an emotional
outburst. In addition, we had Dr. Tesla staging an emotional
outburst the like of which he probably never before exhibited
throughout his life. He was supercharged with a different kind
of vital energy. Just visualize Dr. Tesla as a medium acting
as a co-ordinator, in some unknown way, to release these pent-up
stores of vital energy which, again in an unknown manner, organized
channels of conduction through which this energy was transferred
from levels of high potential to levels of lower potential.
"In this case we were the levels of lower potential,
for I had exactly the same experiences you had, with these energy-transfer
channels in space making contact with various parts of my body
and producing areas in which I, too, experienced a sensation
of intense heat.
"You have read reports of seances in which the sitters
reported that they experienced cool breezes. In these situations
the action is the reverse of what we experienced, for in the
seances energy was being drawn from the sitters to be organized
by the so-called medium for the production of phenomena.
"Some kind of highly attenuated energy-bearing fluid
was, in our experience today, drawn from the bodies of the fighters
and fed into our bodies--and in the seances it is drawn from
the bodies of the sitters and fed into that of the medium, or
to a central collecting point. In a report which I have written
on my seance observations, I have called this substance psynovial
fluid, which is merely a convenient abbreviation for new psychic
fluid.
"Now that you have had today's experience, you will understand
why a few years ago I risked having Dr. Tesla figuratively massacre
me when I told him he was using his meat-machine philosophy of
human life to cover up a lot of strange experiences he has had,
and about which he was afraid to talk. . . ."
Another strange supernormal experience came to Tesla a few
days before he died, but he was probably totally unaware that
the situation had any unusual aspects.
Early one morning he called his favorite messenger boy, Kerrigan,
gave him a sealed envelope, and ordered him to deliver it as
quickly as possible. It was addressed to "Mr. Samuel Clemens,
35 South Fifth Ave., New York City."
Kerrigan returned in a short time with the statement that
he could not deliver the message because the address was incorrect.
There is no such street as South Fifth Ave., the boy reported;
and in the neighborhood of that number on Fifth Ave. no one by
the name of Clemens could be located.
Tesla became annoyed. He told Kerrigan: "Mr. Clemens
is a very famous author who writes under the name Mark Twain,
and you should have no trouble locating him at the address I
gave you. He lives there."
Kerrigan reported to the manager of his office and told him
of his diffculty. The manager told him: "Of course you couldn't
find South Fifth Avenue. Its name was changed to West Broadway
years ago, and you won't be able to deliver a message to Mark
Twain because he has been dead for twenty-five years."
Armed with this information, Kerrigan returned to Tesla, and
the reception accorded his announcements left him still further
confused.
"Don't you dare to tell me that Mark Twain is dead,"
said Tesla. "He was in my room, here, last night. He sat
in that chair and talked to me for an hour. He is having financial
diffculties and needs my help. So you go right back to that address
and deliver that envelope--and don't come back until you have
done so." (The address to which he sent the messenger was
that of Tesla's first laboratory!)
Kerrigan returned to his offce. The envelope, not too well
sealed, was opened in the hope it would give some clue as to
how the message could be delivered, The envelope contained a
blank sheet of paper wrapped around twenty $5 bills! When Kerrigan
tried to return the money, Tesla told him, with great annoyance,
either to deliver the money or keep it.
The last two decades of Tesla's life were filled with many
embarrassing situations concerning unpaid hotel bills, and it
would seem that by some process of transference this situation
was shifted to his perception of Mark Twain.
In view of Tesla's highly intensified abilities to see the
subjects of his thoughts as materialized objects, the simpler
theory would be that by his usual process he had summoned the
vision of Mark Twain, Tesla and Mark Twain were very good friends,
and the inventor had every reason for knowing that the heavy-thinking
humorist was dead, Such being the case, how was he able to forget
his death? An objective theory can be offered which may, or may
not, contain the correct explanation.
Tesla's memory was filled with many recollections of Mark
Twain, dating back to his early youth when he credited the reading
of one of the humorist's books with having brought him out of
a critical illness. Twenty years later, when Tesla related this
incident, the humorist was so deeply affected he wept. A close
friendship followed, filled with many pleasant incidents. Every
incident concerning Mark Twain was laid down in Tesla's memory.
How these records are filed in the brain we do not know, but
we might assume, for the moment, that the arrangement is orderly
enough, with the system based on a time sequence in which each
successive incident is filed on an earlier one, the latest ones
being on top. When Tesla started the process of visualizing Mark
Twain in his room (and it probably operated on a subconscious
level), he penetrated through the stack of memory records until
he reached one that was satisfactory, and then concentrated so
heavy a flow of vital energy in carrying this to the visualization
center of his brain that it burned out, and destroyed, or narcotized,
all later memory records that lay above it. As a result, after
the visualization process was over, there was no record in Tesla's
memory files of anything that happened in his relations with
Mark Twain, following the pleasant record he had so strangely
relived. All subsequent memory records were wiped out, including
his memory of Mark Twain's death. It would then be perfectly
logical for him to reach the conclusion that Mark Twain was still
alive!
Several versions of this story are in circulation. They all
have in common Tesla's belief that Mark Twain was still alive;
that he himself had very recently been in communication with
him, and sought to send him money to meet a diffcult situation.
Pirated, lied about, ignored, (Dr. W. H. Eccles concludes
an obituary memorial, in Nature (London), February 13, 1943:--"Throughout
his long life of 85 years Tesla seldom directed attention to
his own successes, never wrote up again his old work, and rarely
claimed priority though continually pirated. Such reserve is
particularly striking in a mind so rich in creative thought,
so competent in practical achievement.") Tesla carried on
his work during the latter decades, always hoping that he would
be able to arrange matters so that he would be able to finance
all the inventions he was treasuring in his mind. His pride would
not permit him to admit financial embarrassment. He was forced
frequently to leave hotels because of unpaid bills. His friend,
B. A. Behrend, author of the book, The Induction Motor, which
had clarified Tesla's theory for engineers, when visiting New
York and finding the inventor moved from the hotel where he last
found him, in each instance paid his bills, and caused Tesla's
held baggage to be forwarded to him.
In the early thirties, when it seemed as if financial discouragements
would "have him down," Tesla, however, appeared as
optimistic as ever. He declared: "It is impossible for anyone
to gain any idea of the inspiration I gain from my applied inventions
which have become a matter of history, and of the force it supplies
to urge me forward to greater achievements. I continually experience
an inexpressible satisfaction from the knowledge that my polyphase
system is used throughout the world to lighten the burdens of
mankind and increase comfort and happiness, and that my wireless
system, in all of its essential features, is employed to render
a service to and bring pleasure to people in all parts of the
earth."
When his wireless-power system was mentioned, he exhibited
no sign of resentment over the collapse of his project but replied
philosophically: "Perhaps I was a little premature. We can
get along without it as long as my polyphase system continues
to meet our needs. Just as soon as the need arises, however,
I have the system ready to be used with complete success."
On his eightieth birthday he was asked if he expected actually
to construct and operate his recently announced inventions, and
in reply he quoted, in German, a stanza from Goethe's Faust:
"The God that in my bosom lives"
"Can move my deepest inmost soul,"
"Power to all my thought he gives"
"But outside he has no control."
It had been Tesla's intention to write his autobiography.
He desired to have the story of his work recorded with a most
meticulous regard for accuracy; and this, he felt, no one but
himself could bring to it. He declared that he had no intention
of starting work on this project until he had accomplished the
application of all of his major discoveries. Several persons
who proposed writing his biography received only a refusal of
the requested co-operation. Kenneth Swezey, a writer on scientific
subjects, maintained close contact with Tesla for a number of
years, and it was expected that Tesla would co-operate with him
in such a project. Swezey assembled seventy letters from leading
scientists and engineers in all parts of the world as a surprise
for Tesla on his seventy-fifth birthday, at which time the letters,
bound in a memorial volume, were presented to him. These letters,
reprinted in Yugoslavia, led to the establishment of the Tesla
Institute in that country. Swezey was engaged in war work and
expected, at the time of Tesla's death, to enter the Navy; otherwise
he might have undertaken the task of writing Tesla's biography.
Tesla, even up to his eighty-fourth year, expected to recover
more robust health and to live beyond the century mark. It is
probable, therefore, that he had not started work on his autobiography.
Whether or not any parts of it have been written is impossible
to ascertain at the present time. All Tesla's records were sealed
by the Custodian of Alien Property, although Tesla was a citizen
of the United States.
During the last half-dozen years of his life, Tesla, happily,
was supplied with enough money to meet his immediate needs, thanks
to the payment to him of an honorarium of $7,200 a year, by the
Yugoslav government, as patron of the Tesla Institute, established
in Belgrade. (The Society for the Foundation of the Tesla Institute
at Belgrade was organized as Tesla neared his eightieth year.
It enlisted support from the scholars, the government, commercial
interests and the people as a whole. From the government and
private sources an endowment was subscribed which was adequate
to erect and equip a research laboratory and maintain it in operation
as an institute. The Institute was opened in 1936, in commemoration
of Tesla's eightieth anniversary. A week of observance was held
throughout Yugoslavia and formal celebrations were held at Belgrade
on May 26, 27 and 28, at Zagreb on May 30, and at his native
village, Smiljan, on June 2 and also on July 12.) Even with this
income, however, and with a very limited range of activity (being
confined largely to his room), during the last two years Tesla
still managed to fall behind in his hotel bill. This was owing
to his unlimited generosity. He was very generous in bestowing
tips on all who performed the slightest service for him, and
in responding to the slightest suggestion that anyone was in
need of assistance.
During the latter part of 1942 he spent most of the time in
bed, mentally active but physically weak. He permitted no visitors
to come to his room, not even close associates of earlier years.
He insisted to hotel employees that he was not ill and refused
to listen to questions that he have a doctor visit him. He gave
orders that even hotel employees were not to enter his room unless
he summoned them.
On January 5, Tuesday morning, he permitted the maid to come
to his room, and then gave orders to guard his room closely so
that he would not be disturbed. This was done. It was not unusual
for Tesla to give orders that he was not to be disturbed for
protracted periods. Early Friday morning (January 8) a maid with
a premonition, risking his displeasure, entered Tesla's room
and found him dead. He looked peaceful, as if resting, with a
suggestion of a smile on his gaunt bony face. The superman died
as he had lived--alone.
The police were notified that Tesla had died alone and without
medical attendance. The coroner declared his death due to natural
causes incident to senility; and that he had died on the night
of Thursday, January 7, 1943, some hours before the maid entered
the room. Operatives from the Federal Bureau of Investigation
came and opened the safe in his room and took the papers it contained,
to examine them for a reported important secret invention of
possible use in the war. The body was removed to Campbell's Funeral
Parlors at Madison Avenue and 81st Street.
Funeral services were held at the Cathedral of St. John the
Divine, on Tuesday, January 12, at 4 pm. Bishop Manning offered
the opening sentences of the Burial Offce and Final Prayer. Following
the services, the body was removed to Ferncliff Cemetery at Ardsley,
N. Y., and was later cremated.
AFTERGLOW
EIGHTEEN
DESPITE his celibate life, and his almost hermitlike existence
in his own intellectual sphere, Tesla was, in his social contacts,
a charming individual. The year he had spent digging ditches
and doing hard manual labor, when he could get a job of any kind,
and his experience during that time of sleeping in any shelter
he could obtain and eating any kind of food he could manage to
secure, undoubtedly made a tremendous and lasting, impression
on him. The fact that he could never be induced to discuss this
period would so indicate. Yet it probably softened him in a beneffcial
way--by a going-through-the-mill process. But it had been a grievous
insult to his personality to be valued only for the brute strength
in his muscles; and this rankled ever after.
Once he had obtained funds through the founding of his laboratory
and the sale of his patents to Westinghouse, he thereafter maintained
an almost princely status. He knew how to wear clothes to increase
the impressiveness of his appearance; his tallness gave him something
of an advantage over others; his obvious physical strength brought
him a respect that forbade any invasion of his attitude; his
excellent English and the care he exercised to use the language
correctly, and his command of a half-dozen other languages, established
him as a scholar; and the first batch of his alternating-current
inventions created for him in the mind of the public a reputation
for outstanding scientific accomplishment. The fact that he always
spoke of the value of his inventions to the world, and not of
the greatness of his own accomplishment, endeared him to all
who met him.
When Tesla was riding a tidal wave of popularity during the
nineties, he was averse to publicity; but frequently well-known
writers for the newspapers were able to break through the barriers
and secure "feature" articles. An excellent description
of him, keyed to the manner of the period, is contained in an
article written by Franklin Chester, in the Citizen of August
22, 1897. The portion referring to his personal appearance and
activities follows:
So far as personal appearance goes no one can look upon him
without feeling his force. He is more than six feet tall and
very slender. Yet he possesses great physical power. His hands
are large, his thumbs abnormally long, and this is a sign of
great intelligence. His hair is black and straight, a deep shining
black. He brushes it sharply from over his ears, so that it makes
a ridge with serrated edges.
His cheekbones are high and prominent, the mark of the Slav:
his skin is like marble that age has given the first searing
of yellow. His eyes are blue, deeply set, and they burn like
balls of fire. Those weird flashes of light he makes with his
instruments seem also to shoot from them. His head is wedge shaped.
His chin is almost a point.
Never was a human being filled with loftier ideals. Never
did a man labor so unceasingly, so earnestly, so unselfishly
for the benefft of the race. Tesla is not rich. He does not trouble
himself about money. Had he chosen to follow in the footsteps
of Edison he could be, perhaps, the richest man in the world,
and Tesla is just 40 years old.
Tesla is, above all things, a serious man, undoubtedly the
most serious man in New York. Yet he has a keen sense of humor
and the most beautiful manners. He is the most genuinely modest
of men. He knows no jealousy. He has never decried the accomplishments
of another, never refused credit.
When he talks you listen. You do not know what he is saying,
but it enthralls you. You feel the importance without understanding
the meaning. He speaks the perfect English of a highly educated
foreigner, without accent and with precision. He speaks eight
languages equally well.
The daily life of this man has been the same, practically,
ever since he has been in New York. He lives in the Gerlach,
a very quiet family hotel, in 27th street, between Broadway and
Sixth avenue. He starts for his laboratory before 9 o'clock in
the morning, all day long he lives in his weird, uncanny world,
reaching forth to capture new power to gain fresh knowledge.
No stranger ever sees him at his work. No one knows of his
assistants. At rare intervals he presents some experiments in
his laboratory, and there is no sacrifice that thousands of people
would not make to gain admission to these.
Usually he works until 6 o'clock, but he may stay later. The
absence of natural light does not trouble him. Tesla makes sunlight
in his workshop.
At exactly 8 o'clock he enters the Waldorf. He is attired
in irreproachable evening clothes. In the winter time he never
wears an evening jacket, but always the coat with tails.
He finishes his dinner at exactly 10 o'clock, and leaves his
hotel, either to go to his rooms to study or to return to his
laboratory to work through the night.
Arthur Brisbane, who later became Hearst's famous editor,
interviewed Tesla and published in The World, August 22, 1894,
the longest story he had written on a famous person. He declared
Tesla "Our Foremost Electrician--Greater Even than Edison,"
and included the following description of him:
He has eyes set very far back in his head. They are rather
light. I asked him how he could have such light eyes and be a
Slav. He told me that his eyes were once much darker, but that
using his mind a great deal had made them many shades lighter.
I have often heard it said that using the brain makes the eyes
lighter in color. Tesla's confirmation of the theory through
his personal experience is important.
He is very thin, is more than six feet tall, and weighs less
than a hundred and forty pounds. He has very big hands. His thumbs
are remarkably big, even for such big hands. They are extraordinarily
big. This is a good sign. The thumb is the intellectual part
of the hand. The apes have very small thumbs. Study them and
you will notice this.
Nikola Tesla has a head that spreads out at the top like a
fan. His head is shaped like a wedge. His chin is as pointed
as an ice-pick. His mouth is too small. His chin, though not
weak, is not strong enough. His face cannot be studied and judged
like the faces of other men, for he is not a worker in practical
fields. He lives his life up in the top of his head, where ideas
are born, and up there he has plenty of room. His hair is jet
black and curly. He stoops--most men do when they have no peacock
blood in them. He lives inside of himself. He takes a profound
interest in his own work. He has that supply of self-love and
self-confidence which usually goes with success. And he differs
from most of the men who are written and talked about in the
fact that he has something to tell.
Tesla had, to be sure, a sense of humor and enjoyed putting
over a subtle joke. Before the period in which he became a regular
diner at the Waldorf-Astoria, he dined nightly at Delmonico's,
then the smartest hostelry in the city, and a gathering place
for "The 400." Tesla was the most famous and spectacular
figure among the famous patrons of the famous place, but he always
dined alone. He could never be induced to join other groups and
never had a guest of his own. After dining he would always return
to work at his laboratory.
One evening some of his friends, believing that he was working
too hard and should get some relaxation, induced him to join
them in a game of billiards. They assumed he had neglected to
learn how to play games, so, on arriving at the billiard room,
they explained to him how to hold the cue, strike the balls,
and other elements of the game. Tesla had not played billiards
in a dozen years; but during his second year at Graumltz, when
he was a year ahead in his studies and spent his evenings in
the cafe's, he had become an expert billiardist. When the experts
at Delmonico's gave him preparatory instruction, he asked some
"dumb" questions, and made some intentional miscues.
Taking on one of the players and still asking silly questions,
he tried the most diffcult way of making shots--to demonstrate
his purely amateur status--and made them, to the amazement of
the experts. Several of them took him on that evening, and he
defeated all of them with badly unbalanced scores. He declared
the new game give him a wonderful opportunity to practice very
abstract mathematical theories; and the experts at Delmonico's
spread stories about the wonderful accomplishment of Scientist
Tesla in mastering the game in a single evening and defeating
the best players in the city. The story got into the newspapers.
Tesla refused to play any more, declaring he was in danger of
becoming so enthusiastic over the game that it would interfere
with his researches.
This same man magnificent who graced the Waldorf-Astoria and
Delmonico's was not averse, however, to visiting the Bowery,
which was but a block away from his Houston Street laboratory.
He repaired to a thirst-quenching emporium on that thoroughfare
one afternoon shortly after a denizen of the Bowery, Steve Brodie,
had achieved fame by jumping, or at least claiming to have jumped,
off the Brooklyn Bridge. As Tesla raised his glass of whiskey
he said to the bartender: "You know what Steve said as he
was about to jump off the bridge--`Down he goes"'; and with
that he downed his liquor in a gulp.
A near-by drinker, a little the worse for several, misunderstood
Tesla's remark and got the impression he had heard Steve Brodie
telling the final episode of his feat. He rushed up to Tesla
to buy him a drink, and was joined by his friends. Tesla with
a laugh shook them off and dashed out of the bar, while the misguided
drinker started after him yelling, "Stop him, that's Steve."
On the street the pedestrians misunderstood the thick-tongued
drinker's shout and joined him in the chase, calling "Stop,
thief!" Tesla's long legs rendered him a valuable service
and he got a lead on the crowd, dashed into an alley, over a
fence and climbed a fire escape on the back of his own building,
reached his laboratory through a window, quickly donned a blacksmith's
apron and started hammering a bar of metal. His pursuers, however,
failed to trace him.
Tesla was idolized by the Serbians in New York. A great many
of them could claim to be distant relatives through either the
Tesla or Mandich side of the family, and those who could not
claim this distinction revered him none the less, despite the
fact he never accepted invitations to take part in their social
or other functions.
One day an excited Serbian, a laborer, came to his apartment
at the Waldorf-Astoria to beg his aid. He had gotten into a fight
and pummeled a fellow Serbian, who had sworn out a warrant for
his arrest. The visitor did not have any money but wanted to
go to Chicago to escape arrest. Would Tesla please lend him the
money for his railroad fare?
"So you assaulted a man and now want to run away to escape
punishment," said Tesla. "You may run away from the
law but you are not going to escape punishment; you are going
to get it right now!" Seizing a cane and grasping the man
by the back of the neck, he ran him around the room, beating
the dust out of the seat of his trousers until the man cried
for mercy.
"Do you think you can be a better man in Chicago and
keep out of fights?" Tesla asked him. The man was sure he
could. He received the money for his railroad fare and a few
dollars more.
So great was Tesla's popularity in the nineties that many
persons came to dine in the Palm Room at the Waldorf just to
catch a glimpse of the famous inventor. He arranged to leave
his offce at six, but just before leaving he would telephone
the order for his dinner to the headwaiter, always insisting
that none less could serve him. The meal was required to be ready
at eight o'clock. In the meantime he would go to his room and
array himself in formal evening attire--white tie and tails.
He dined alone, except on the rare occasions when he would give
a dinner to a group to meet his social obligations.
Money was always a nuisance detail to Tesla. For about fifteen
years, following 1888, he always had all he needed to meet his
obligations; and he lived well. After about 1902 his financial
road became quite rocky--but his fame was greater than ever,
and likewise the need for maintaining his standard of living
if he was to recoup his fortune. He continued to stage frequent
large dinners at the Waldorf to repay his social obligations,
and had diffculty in accustoming himself to a money deffciency.
On one occasion, when a large party was assembled in a private
dining room, the headwaiter whispered to him that a most excellent
dinner was prepared and ready to serve as he had ordered it,
but that the credit department insisted it could not be served
until he paid for it in advance. "Get Mr. Morgan on the
telephone in the manager's offce and I will be down there immediately,"
Tesla fumed. In a short time a more-than-adequate check was delivered
to Tesla by a messenger. Many such occasions are reported to
have arisen, but were always straightened out in the manager's
offce, usually without any outside intervention.
The closest approach to home life which Tesla enjoyed came
to him through Robert Underwood Johnson diplomat and poet, and
one of the editors of the Century Magazine, whose home was in
Madison Avenue in the fashionable Murray Hill district. Tesla
and Johnson were very close friends. A love of poetry was one
of the several interests they had in common. Johnson wrote, and
published in the Century, in April, 1895, a short poem on his
visit to Tesla's laboratory. This led to a cooperative enterprise
in which he paraphrased many pieces of Serbian poetry from literal
translations made by Tesla, who could recite many thousands of
lines of such material from memory. About forty pages of these
translations, with an introductory note by Tesla, appeared in
the next edition of Poems by Johnson.
Persons famous in all fields of activity were frequent guests
in the Johnson home, and formal dinners were constantly being
held for brilliant assemblages of personalities. Tesla was present
as frequently as he could be induced to come, but he preferred
to avoid all formal dinners as much as possible. He was, however,
a very frequent informal visitor, arriving unexpected, and often
at most unusual hours. It was not uncommon for Tesla to arrive
at the Johnson home after midnight, after the family had retired,
and for "Bob" and "Nick" to sit up for hours
reveling in the exchange of a magnificent array of ideas. (Johnson
and "Willie" K. Vanderbilt, were, as has been noted,
the only individuals who rated the exchange of first names with
Tesla.)
Tesla's visits to the Johnson home were always many hours
long. He would arrive in a hansom cab, which he always required
to wait for him to return to his hotel only a few blocks distant.
The Johnson children learned to take advantage of this, and when
he arrived early in the evening they would get his permission
to use the cab for a drive through Central Park while he chatted
at home.
Tesla enjoyed the opera and at one time attended the performances
quite frequently. William K. Vanderbilt's box was always available
to him, as likewise were those of many other patrons of the Metropolitan.
He occasionally attended the theatre. His favorite actress was
Elsie Ferguson who, he declared, knew how to dress and was the
most graceful woman he had ever seen on the stage. He gradually
dropped both the theatre and opera in favor of the movies, but
was an infrequent attendant even at those. He would not witness
a tragedy but enjoyed comedy and the lighter aspects of entertainment.
One of his close friends was Rear Admiral Richmond Pearson
Hobson, the Spanish American War hero. In later years, Hobson
was the only person who was able to cajole Tesla into breaking
a long vigil at his intellectual pursuits for a session at the
movies.
Tesla did not subscribe to any religion. Early in life he
severed his relations with the Church and did not accept its
doctrines. At his seventy-fifth birthday dinner he declared that
that which is called the soul is merely one of the functions
of the body, and that when the activities of the body cease,
the soul ceases to exist.
It is difficult for a man to appear as a hero to his secretary,
but to Miss Dorothy F. Skerritt, who served Tesla in this capacity
for many years until he closed his offce when he was seventy,
he remained a saintly superman. Her description of Tesla, at
this age, records him as possessing the same magnetic personality
that so impressed writers thirty years earlier. She wrote:
As one approached Mr. Tesla he beheld a tall, gaunt man. He
appeared to be an almost divine being. When about 70 he stood
erect, his extremely thin body immaculately and simply attired
in clothing of a subdued coloring. Neither scarf pin nor ring
adorned him. His bushy black hair was parted in the middle and
brushed back briskly from his high broad forehead, deeply lined
by his close concentration on scientific problems that stimulated
and fascinated him. From under protruding eyebrows his deepset,
steel gray, soft, yet piercing eyes, seemed to read your innermost
thoughts. As he waxed enthusiastic about fields to conquer and
achievements to attain his face glowed with almost ethereal radiance,
and his listeners were transported from the commonplaces of today
to imaginative realms of the future. His genial smile and nobility
of bearing always denoted the gentlemanly characteristics that
were so ingrained in his soul.
Until the last, Tesla was meticulously careful about his clothes.
He knew how to dress well and did so. He declared to a secretary,
in 1910, that he was the best-dressed man on Fifth Avenue and
intended to maintain that standard. This was not because of personal
vanity. Neatness and fastidiousness in clothes were entirely
in harmony with every other phase of his personality. He did
not maintain a large wardrobe and he wore no jewelry of any kind.
Good clothes fitted in very nicely with his courtly bearing.
He observed, however, that in the matter of clothes the world
takes a man at his own valuation, as expressed in his appearance,
and frequently eases his way to his objective through small courtesies
not extended to less prepossessing individuals.
He was partial to the waisted coat. No matter what he wore,
however, it carried an air of quiet elegance. The only type of
hat he wore was the black derby. He carried a cane and wore,
usually, gray suede gloves.
Tesla paid $2.50 a pair for his gloves, wore them for a week
and then discarded them even though they still appeared as fresh
as when they came from the maker. He standardized his style of
ties and always wore the four-in-hand. The design motive was
of minor importance but the colors were limited to a combination
of red and black. He purchased a new tie every week, paying always
one dollar.
Silk shirts, plain white, were the only kind Tesla would wear.
As with other articles of his clothing, such as pajamas, his
initials were always embroidered on the left chest.
Handkerchiefs he purchased in large numbers because he never
sent them to the laundry. After their first use they were discarded.
He liked a good quality of linen and purchased a standard package
brand. His collars were never laundered, either. He never wore
one more than once.
Tesla always wore high-laced shoes, except on formal occasions.
He required a long narrow shoe and insisted on a last that had
a neatly tapered square-toe effect. His shoes were undoubtedly
made to order, for the tops extended halfway up his calf, a style
that could not be purchased in merchant shoe stores. His tallness
in all probability made this additional support at the ankles
desirable.
The single use of articles, such as handkerchiefs and collars,
extended to napkins. Tesla had a germ phobia, and it acted like
so much sand in the social machinery of his life. He required
that the table he used in the dining room of his hotel be not
used by others. A fresh table cloth was required for every meal.
He also required that a stack of two dozen napkins be placed
on the left side of the table. As each item of silverware and
each dish was brought to him--and he required that they be sterilized
by heat before leaving the kitchen--he would pick each one up,
interposing a napkin between his hand and the utensil, and use
another napkin to clean it. He could then drop both napkins on
the floor. Even for a simple meal, he usually ran through the
full stock of napkins. Flies were his pet abomination. A fly
alighting on his table was adequate cause for removing everything
from the table and making an entirely new start with the meal.
Tesla was fortunate in that the headwaiter at the Waldorf-Astoria,
during the period he was living there, Mr. Peterson, was afterward
headwaiter at the Hotel Pennsylvania, where he later lived for
several years. A story was in circulation to the effect that
both at the Waldorf and at the Pennsylvania a special chef was
employed to prepare Tesla's meals, but Mr. Peterson states that
this story was untrue.
In his earlier years, for dinner, he greatly enjoyed fine
thick steaks, preferably the filet mignon, and it was not unusual
for him to consume two or three at a sitting. Later his preference
turned to lamb, and he would frequently order a roast saddle
of it. While the saddle was usually large enough to serve a party
of several persons, as a rule he ate of it only the central portion
of the tenderloin. A crown of baby lamb chops was another favorite
dish. He also relished roast squab with nut stuffng. In fowl,
however, his choice was roast duck. He required that it be roasted
under a smothering of celery stalks. This method of preparing
the duck was of his own devising. He very often made it the central
motif around which a dinner was designed when entertaining friends,
and on such occasions he would go to the kitchen to superintend
its preparation. Duck so prepared was nevertheless delicious.
Of the duck he ate only the meat on either side of the breast
bone.
With the passing decades, Tesla shifted away from a meat diet.
He substituted fish, always boiled, and finally eliminated the
meat entirely. He later almost entirely eliminated the fish and
lived on a vegetarian diet. Milk was his main standby, and toward
the end of his life it was the principal item of diet, served
warm.
As a youth he drank a great deal of coffee, and, while he
gradually became aware that he suffered unfavorable influences
from it, he found it a diffcult habit to break. When he finally
made the decision to drink no more of it, he adhered to his good
intentions but was forced to recognize the fact that the desire
for it remained. He combated this by ordering with each meal
a pot of his favorite coffee, and having a cup of it poured so
that he would get the aroma. It required ten years for the aroma
of the coffee to transform itself into a nuisance so that he
felt secure in no longer having it served. Tea and cocoa he also
considered injurious.
He was a heavy smoker in his youth, mostly of cigars. A sister
who seemed fatally ill, when he was in his early twenties, said
she would try to get better if he would give up smoking. He did
so immediately. His sister recovered, and he never smoked again.
Tesla drank whiskey, for this he considered a very beneffcial
source of energy and an invaluable means for prolonging life.
It was responsible, he believed, for the longevity enjoyed by
many of his ancestors. It would enable him, he declared early
in the century, to live to one hundred and fifty. When prohibition
came along with the First World War, he denounced it as an intolerable
interference with the rights of citizens. Nevertheless, he promptly
gave up the use of whiskey and all other beverages except milk
and water. He declared, however, that the elimination of whiskey
would reduce his expectation of life to one hundred and thirty
years.
Stimulants were not necessary to help him to think, Tesla
said. A brisk walk he found much better as an aid for concentration.
He seemed to be in a dream when walking. Even one whom he knew
very well he would pass at close range and not see, though he
might appear to be looking directly at him. His thoughts were
usually miles away from where he was. It was this practice, apparently,
which was responsible for the accident, in 1937, when he was
struck and severely injured by a taxicab. As a matter of fact,
he had stated in an interview two years earlier that he would
probably be killed by a truck or taxicab while jaywalking.
Tesla's weight, stripped, was 142 pounds, and, except during
brief periods of illness, hardly varied a pound from 1888 to
about 1926, when he intentionally reduced his weight five pounds.
One of Tesla's indulgences, over many years, was scalp massages.
He would visit a barbershop three times a week and have the barber
rub his scalp for half an hour. He was insistent upon the barber
placing a clean towel on his chair but, strangely enough, he
did not object to the use of the common shaving mug and brush.
Tesla always claimed that he never slept more than two hours
a night. His retiring time, he said, was five am, and he would
arise at ten am after spending only two hours in sleep, three
hours being too much. Once a year, he admitted, he would sleep
for five hours--and that would result in building up a tremendous
reserve of energy. He never stopped working, he claimed,--even
when asleep. Tesla laughed at Edison's claim that he slept only
four hours a night. It was a regular practice with Edison, he
said, to sit down in his laboratory and doze off into a three-hour
nap about twice a day. It is possible that Tesla, too, obtained
some sleep in a similar fashion, perhaps without being conscious
of the fact. Hotel employees have related that it was quite common
to see Tesla standing transfixed in his room for hours at a time,
so oblivious to his surroundings that they were able to work
around his room without his being, apparently, aware of their
presence.
Tesla always provided his offce with a separate washroom which
no one but himself was permitted to use. He would wash his hands
on the slightest pretext. When he did so, he required that his
secretary hand him a freshly laundered towel each time to dry
them.
He went to extremes to avoid shaking hands. He usually placed
his hands behind his back when anyone approached who he feared
might make an effort to shake hands, and this frequently led
to embarrassing moments. If by chance a visitor to his offce
should catch him off guard and shake his hand, Tesla was so upset
that he would be unable to pay attention to the visitor's mission
and frequently would dismiss him before it was completely stated;
and immediately he would rush to the washroom and scour his hands.
Workmen eating their lunch with dirty hands almost nauseated
him.
Pearls, too, were one of Tesla's phobias. If a woman guest
at a dinner party to which he was invited wore pearls, he was
unable to eat. Smooth round surfaces, in general, were an abomination
to him; it had even taken him a long time to learn to tolerate
billiard balls.
Tesla never knew the experience of having a headache. In spite
of a number of cases of serious illness, in his independent years
he was never attended by a doctor.
There were reasons for practically all of Tesla's phobias,
not all of them generally known. His germ phobia can be traced
back to his two serious illnesses early in life, both of which
were probably cholera, a disease constantly prevalent in his
native land, caused by a germ transmitted by impure drinking
water and by contact between individuals.
Tesla was not oblivious of his idiosyncrasies; he was quite
aware of them and of the friction which they caused in his daily
life. They were an essential part of him, however, and he could
no more have dispensed with them than he could his right arm.
They were probably one of the consequences of his solitary mode
of life or, possibly, a contributing cause of it.
6NINETEEN
Tesla's mind always seemed to be under an explosive pressure.
An avalanche of ideas was forever straining for release. He seemed
to be unable to keep up with the flood of his own thoughts. He
never had suffcient facilities to keep his accomplishments equal
to his projects. If he had an army of adequately trained assistants,
he would still be insuffciently equipped. As a result, those
associated with him always experienced a sense of "drive";
yet he was a most generous employer both in the matter of wages
paid and the number of hours of work required. He frequently
demanded overtime work but always paid generously for it.
Nevertheless, Tesla was not an easy man to work for. He was
most meticulously neat in his personal affairs and required all
workers to be the same. He was an excellent mechanic and set
extremely high standards, by his own accomplishments, for all
work done in his shops. He greatly admired cleverness in his
assistants, frequently rewarding them with extra compensation
for diffcult jobs well done, but was extremely impatient with
stupidity and carelessness.
Although Tesla maintained a staff of draughtsmen, he never
used them in his own design work on machines, and tolerated them
only because of unavoidable contacts with other organizations.
When having machines constructed for his own use, he would give
individual instruction on each part. The workman scheduled to
do the machinework would be summoned to Tesla's desk, where the
inventor would make an almost microscopically small sketch in
the middle of a large sheet of paper. No matter how detailed
the piece of work, or its size, the sketch was always less than
one inch in its largest dimensions. If Tesla made the slightest
slip of the pencil in drawing the sketch, he would not make an
erasure but would start over on another sheet of paper. All dimensions
were given verbally. When the drawing was finished, the workman
was not permitted to take it with him to the shop to guide him
in his work. Tesla would destroy the drawing and require the
machinist to work from memory. Tesla depended entirely on his
memory for all details, he never reduced his mentally completed
plans to paper for guidance in construction--and he believed
others could achieve this ability if they would make suffcient
effort. So he sought to force them to try by insisting on their
working without drawings.
All those who worked with Tesla greatly admired him for his
remarkable ability to keep track of a vast number of finest details
concerning every phase of the many projects he had under way
simultaneously. No employee was ever given any more information
than was absolutely essential for completing a project. No one
was ever told the purposes for which a machine or article was
to be used. Tesla claimed that Edison received more ideas from
his associates than he contributed, so he himself bent over backward
to avoid this situation. He felt that he was the richest man
in the world in the matter of ideas and needed none from anyone
else; and he intended to prevent all from contributing any.
Tesla was probably very unfair to Edison in this respect.
The two men were entirely different and distinct types. Tesla
was totally lacking in the university type of mind; that is,
the mind which is adapted to cooperate with others in acquiring
knowledge and conducting research. He could neither give nor
receive, but was entirely adequate to his own requirements. Edison
had more of the cooperative, or executive, type of mind. He was
able to attract brilliant associates and to delegate to them
major portions of his inventive research projects. He had the
ability to act as a catalyzer, to stimulate them to creative
mental activities, and thus multiply his own creative abilities.
If Tesla had possessed this ability, his record of accomplishment
would have been tremendously magnified.
The inability to work with others, the inability to share
his plans, was the greatest handicap from which Tesla suffered.
It completely isolated him from the rest of the intellectual
structure of his time and caused the world to lose a vast amount
of creative thought which he was unable to translate into complete
inventions. It is a duty of a master to train pupils who will
carry on after him--but Tesla refused to accept this responsibility.
Had Tesla, in his most active period, associated with him a half-dozen
brilliant young scientists, they would have been in a position
to link him with the engineering and scientific worlds from which,
despite his eminence and his outstanding accomplishments, he
was to a great extent isolated because of his unusual personal
characteristics. His fame was so secure that the success of his
assistants could not have detracted from it; but the master would
have shone more brightly in the brilliant accomplishments of
his pupils. He might well have attracted some practical young
men who could have aided him by assuming the burden of making
practical application of some of the minor but important inventions
from which he could have earned suffcient profit to pay the cost
of maintaining his laboratories. Many scores of important inventions
have undoubtedly been lost to the world because of Tesla's intellectual
hermit characteristics. Undoubtedly, he indirectly inspired many
young men to become inventors.
Tesla responded powerfully to personal idiosyncrasies in individuals
with whom he worked. When his reaction was unfavorable, he was
unable to tolerate the presence of the person within eyeshot.
When carrying on his experimental work at the Allis Chalmers
plant in Milwaukee, for example, he did not increase his popularity
by insisting that certain workers be dropped from the crew working
on the turbine because he did not like their looks. Since, as
noted earlier, he had already antagonized the engineers in that
plant by going over their heads to the president and board of
directors, the turbine job went forward in something less than
a cooperative atmosphere.
Tesla was thoroughly impractical throughout, too, in handling
money matters. When he was working on the Union Sulphur Company
turbine project, a ship was made available for his use, free,
during the day; but if he worked after six pm it would cost him
$20 per hour. He never showed up at the ship until six o'clock.
Every night, in addition, he had to hand out $10 for suppers
for the crew. In the course of a year these costs totaled about
$12,000, which must have cut heavily into the retainer he received.
Nor were these his only additional expenses. Almost every night
he handed a $5 tip to his principal assistants among the crew,
and once a week to all members of the crew. These manifestations
of generosity were not, of course, a total loss to Tesla; they
might rather be classed as necessities, for he was very dictatorial
in directing his assistants.
Inquiries among the employees at hotels where he lived revealed
that he had a reputation for acting in a most cavalier manner
toward the servants. He was almost cruel in the manner in which
he ordered them around, but would make immediate compensation
by the generous tips he bestowed.
He was always, however, very considerate of women, and even
men, on his offce staff. If any one of them did an unusually
fine piece of work, everyone on the staff was informed of it.
Criticism was always delivered privately to the individual involved.
Tesla had a standing rule that every messenger boy who came
to his offce was to receive a tip of twenty-five cents, and he
set aside a fund of $10 a week for this purpose.
If necessity required that he keep his staff of young women
secretaries and typists working overtime for several hours, he
would provide them with a dinner at Delmonico's. He would hire
a cab for the girls and would follow them in another cab. After
making arrangements to pay the bill, and paying the tip in advance,
he would leave.
Tesla timed his arrival at the offce so that he entered at
the stroke of noon. He required that his secretary should be
standing immediately inside the door to receive him and take
his hat, cane and gloves. His offces were opened by nine o'clock
each morning, so all routine matters would be handled before
his arrival. Before Tesla arrived, all the shades in the offce
had to be drawn so that no outdoor light was admitted and night
conditions were simulated. The inventor, as remarked, was a "sun
dodger." He appeared to be at his best at night and at some
kind of disadvantage in daylight; at any rate, he preferred the
night for work and what he called his recreation.
The only time Tesla would permit the shades of his offce to
be raised was when a lightning storm was raging. The various
offces he leased faced on open spaces. The 8 West 40th Street
offce was on the south side of Bryant Park, in the east end of
which was the low-roofed structure that housed the New York Public
Library. From his windows on the twentieth floor, he could look
beyond the city roof scape below him and obtain a broad view
of the sky.
When the rumbles of distant thunder announced that the fireworks
of the sky would presently be flashing, it was not only permissible
to raise the shades--it was obligatory. Tesla loved to watch
lightning flash. The black mohair couch would be drawn close
to the windows so that he could lie on it, completely relaxed,
while his vision commanded a full view of the northern or the
western sky. He was always talking to himself, but during a lightning
storm he would become eloquent. His conversation on such occasions
was never recorded. He wished to be a lone observer of this gorgeous
spectacle, and his secretaries were quite willing that he should
be so accommodated. By finger measurements and counting seconds
he was able to calculate the distance, length and voltage of
each flash.
How thrilled Tesla must have been by these tremendous sparks,
many times longer than he had been able to produce in his Colorado
Springs laboratory! He had successfully imitated Nature's electrical
fireworks, but he had not as yet exceeded her performance.
The ancient Romans sublimated their frustrations by the forces
of Nature by creating the mental concept of their mightiest god,
Jupiter, as one endowed with the power of creating lightning
and hurling his bolts at earth. Tesla had refused to accept frustration;
but, like the ancient Romans, he too set up a mental concept,
a superman not inferior to the Romans' ruling god, who would
control the forces of Nature. Yes, Tesla thoroughly enjoyed a
lightning storm. From his mohair couch, he used to applaud the
lightning; he approved of it. He may even have been a little
bit jealous.
Tesla never married; no woman, with the exception of his mother
and his sisters, ever shared the smallest fraction of his life.
He idolized his mother and admired his sisters for their intellectual
accomplishments. One of his sisters, Marica, exhibited unusual
ability as a mathematician and had greater ability than his own
for memorizing long passages from books. He attributed to his
mother most of his abilities as an inventor, and he continuously
spoke in praise of her ability to contrive useful gadgets for
the household, often regretting that she had not been born into
an environment in which she would have been able to manifest
to a larger world her many creative talents. He was not unaware
of the values which a woman could bring into a man's life, for
he had ever before him the vast contributions which his mother
made to his father's welfare and happiness. However, he lived
instead a blueprint life, one which he had planned in his early
youth, one designed along engineering lines, with all of the
time and energies available to be directed to invention and none
to be dissipated on emotional projects.
From the romantic point of view, Tesla as a young man was
not unattractive. He was too tall and slender to pose as the
physical Adonis, but his other qualifications more than compensated
for this possible defect. He was handsome of face, had a magnetic
personality, but was quiet, almost shy; he was soft spoken, well
educated and wore clothes well in spite of inadequate funds with
which to keep up a wardrobe. However, he avoided romantic encounters,
or any situations that would lead up to them, just as assiduously
as other young men sought them. He would not permit his thoughts
to wander into romantic channels, and with thoughts successfully
controlled, action control became a problem of vanishing magnitude.
He did not develop an antagonism to women; he solved the problem,
instead, by idealizing them.
A typical instance of how he avoided romance is furnished
by an incident that occurred in Paris when he returned to that
city to give a lecture on his alternating-current system after
he had become world famous. His wonderful discoveries were the
principal topic of conversation of the day, and he was the cynosure
of all eyes wherever he went. The situation was entirely pleasant
to Tesla. Less than ten years before, the executives the Continental
Edison Company, in that city, had not alone rejected the alternating-current
system he had offered them but had cheated him of his just earnings.
Now he was returning to that city after receiving recognition
and wealth in the United States and fame throughout the world.
He was in Paris as a returned hero and the world was at his feet.
As he sat in an outdoor cafe; with a young male friend, amidst
a chattering, fashionably dressed crowd, a graceful, gorgeously
gowned young woman, with a stylishly coiffured crown of red hair,
whom he instantly recognized as Sarah Bernhardt, the famous French
actress--the "divine Sarah"--swung close to his table
and when a few feet away very auspiciously dropped a tiny lace
handkerchief.
Tesla was on his feet in an instant. He recovered the handkerchief,
and with his hat in his other hand, bowing low from the waist,
he handed the wisp of lace to the beautiful tragedienne, saying:
"Mademoiselle, your handkerchief." Without even an
upward glance at her graciously smiling face, he returned to
his chair and resumed his conversation about his experiments
on a world wireless system of power transmission.
When a newspaper reporter once asked Tesla why he had not
married, his reply, as contained in the published interview was:
I have planned to devote my whole life to my work and for
that reason I am denied the love and companionship of a good
woman; and more, too.
I believe that a writer or a musician should marry. They gain
inspiration that leads to finer achievement.
But an inventor has so intense a nature, with so much in it
of wild, passionate quality that, in giving himself to a woman,
he would give up everything, and so take everything from his
chosen field: It is a pity, too; sometimes we feel so lonely.
In my student days I have known what it was to pass forty-eight
hours at a stretch at a gaming table, undergoing intense emotion,
that which most people believe is the strongest that can be known,
but it is tame and insipid compared with that sublime moment
when you see the labor of weeks fructify in a successful experiment
that proves your theories. . . .
"Many times has Nikola Tesla known that supreme happiness,"
said the interviewer, "and he is likely to know it often
again. It is impossible that his life work can be finished at
forty. It would seem that his powers are only reaching their
maturity."
Tesla was not unappreciative of the activities of the many
women who showed a sincere interest in his welfare, and who tried
to make life tolerable and pleasant for an obviously none-too-well-adjusted
scientist projected into a social world from which he would have
been only too willing to escape. He spoke glowingly of the first
Mrs. Clarence Mackay (e Duer), Mrs. Jordan L. Mott, and of the
beauty of Lady Ribblesdale (the former Mrs. John Jacob Astor).
He admired the energetic idealism of Miss Anne Morgan; but never
was the situation brightened by a single tint of romance.
He was impressed by the tall, graceful and charming Miss Marguerite
Merington, a talented pianist and writer on musical subjects,
who was a frequent dinner guest at the Johnson home.
"Why do you not wear diamonds and jewelry like other
women?" Tesla undiplomatically asked Miss Merington, one
evening.
"It is not a matter of choice with me," she replied,
"but if I had enough money to load myself with diamonds
I could think of better ways of spending it."
"What would you do with money if you had it?" the
inventor continued.
"I would prefer to purchase a home in the country, except
that I would not enjoy commuting to the suburbs," Miss Merington
replied.
"Ah! Miss Merington, when I start getting my millions
I will solve that problem. I will buy a square block here in
New York and build a villa for you in the center and plant trees
all around it. Then you will have your country home and will
not have to leave the city."
Tesla was most generous in the distribution of his always
still-to-be-gotten millions; none of his friends would ever have
lacked anything they desired if he had had suffcient funds with
which to satisfy their wishes. His promises, however, were always
to be fulfilled--"When I start getting my millions."
Tesla had, as might be expected, very definite ideas about
how women should dress. He also had clear-cut ideas about the
feminine figure. He disliked the big "hefty" type and
utterly detested fat women. The super-upholstered type, flashily
dressed and heavily jeweled, that wasted time in hotel lobbies,
were his pet abomination. He liked women trim, slim, graceful
and agile.
One of his secretaries, well proportioned and a graceful blonde,
wore to the offce one day a dress that was in the very latest
style. It was a summer dress made from a pretty print. The prevailing
style called for an extremely low waist line, well down on the
hips, several inches below its natural location. This gave a
relatively short skirt and from the neck to the hips the dress
was almost a plain cylinder. The style was very new, and was
enjoying an intense but brief wave of popularity. The secretary
was an excellent seamstress and had made the dress herself, an
accomplishment of which she was justly proud.
Tesla summoned the secretary. She breezed into his sanctum
not expecting, but hoping, that he would say something nice about
her new dress.
"Miss," he said, "what is that you are wearing?
You cannot wear that on this errand on which I wish you to go.
I wished to have you take a note to a very important banker down
town, and what would he think if someone from my offce should
come to him wearing such a monstrosity of a gown? How can you
be such a slave to fashion? Whatever the fashion designers say
is the style you buy and wear. Miss, you have good sense and
good taste, so why did you let the saleslady in the store force
a dress like this on you? Now if you were also very clever like
my sister who makes all her own dresses you would not be forced
to wear any such abominable style as this, then you too could
make your own clothes and you could wear sensible gowns. You
should always follow nature in the design of your clothes. Do
not let a style designer deform nature for you, for then you
become hideous instead of attractive. Now, Miss, you get into
a cab, so not many people will see you, and go to your home and
get into a sensible dress and return as soon as you can so you
can take this letter down town for me."
Tesla never addressed any of his woman employees by either
their Christian names or surnames. The only form of address he
used to them was "Miss." As he spoke it, it sounded
like "Meese," and he could make it very expressive.
When he addressed the secretary wearing the gown of which he
disapproved, it sounded like "Meeeeeeesssse." It could
also be an abrupt, abbreviated expletive.
When a young woman on his office staff left his employ to
get married, Tesla preached this sermonette to the remaining
members:
"Do not marry too young. When you marry too young, men
marry you mostly for your beauty and ten years later when your
beauty is gone, they tire of you and become interested in someone
else."
Tesla's attitude toward woman was paradoxical; he idealized
woman--put her up on a pedestal--and yet he also viewed women
in a purely objective and materialistic way, as if no spiritual
concepts were involved in their make-up. This was undoubtedly
an outward expression of the conflict that was taking place within
his own life, between the normal healthy attitude toward female
companionship, and the coldly objective planning of his life
under which he refused to share the smallest fraction of his
life with any woman.
Only the finest type of women could approach within friendship
distance of Tesla, and such individuals were idealized by him
without the least diffculty; he could desex them mentally so
that the vector or emotional attraction was eliminated. To the
remainder he did not bother to apply this process. They had no
attraction for him.
Out of the welter of human affairs, however, he visioned the
rising of a superior breed of human beings, few in number but
of vastly elevated intellectual status, while the remainder of
the race leveled itself on a merely productive and reproductive
plane, which, however, could represent a considerable improvement
over existing conditions. He sought to fashion an idealism out
of purely materialistic concepts of human nature. This was a
hold-over from the materialistic, agnostic views which were fashionable
and prevalent among scientists in the formative period of his
youth. This phase of his attitude was not particularly hard to
break down in his latter years; but the phase which represented
an engineering approach to the solution of problems of the human
race was more firmly held, although he was willing to admit that
spiritual factors had a real existence and should be considered
in such planning.
His views concerning women received their only expression
in published form in the article written for Collier's, in 1924,
by John B. Kennedy, from an interview with Tesla. On this occasion,
he said:
The struggle of the human female toward sex equality will
end up in a new sex order, with the females superior. The modern
woman, who anticipates in merely superficial phenomenon the advancement
of her sex, is but a surface symptom of something deeper and
more potent fomenting in the bosom of the race.
It is not in the shallow physical imitation of the men that
women will assert first their equality and later their superiority,
but in the awakening of the intellect of women.
But the female mind has demonstrated a capacity for all the
mental acquirements and achievements of men, and as generations
ensue that capacity will be expanded; the average woman will
be as well educated as the average man, and then better educated,
for the dormant faculties of her brain will be stimulated into
an activity that will be all the more intense because of centuries
of repose
Women will ignore precedent and startle civilization with
their progress.
The acquisition of new fields of endeavor by women, their
gradual usurpation of leadership, will dull and finally dissipate
feminine sensibilities, will choke the maternal instinct so that
marriage and motherhood may become abhorrent and human civilization
draw closer and closer to the perfect civilization of the bee.
The significance of this lies in the principle dominating
the economy of the bee--the most highly organized and intelligently
coordinated system of any form of non-rational animal life--the
all governing supremacy of the instinct for immortality which
makes divinity out of motherhood.
The center of all bee life is the queen. She dominates the
hive, not through hereditary right, for any egg may be hatched
into a reigning queen, but because she is the womb of the insect
race.
There are vast desexualized armies of workers whose sole aim
and business in life is hard work. It is the perfection of communism,
of socialized, cooperative life wherein all things, including
the young, are the common property of all.
Then there are the virgin bees, the princess bees, the females
which are selected from the eggs of the queen when they are hatched
and preserved in case an unfruitful queen should bring disappointment
to the hive. And there are the male bees, few in number, unclean
in habit, tolerated only because they are necessary to mate with
the queen. . . .
The queen returns to the hive, impregnated, carrying with
her tens of thousands of eggs--a future city of bees, and then
begins the cycle of reproduction, the concentration of the teeming
life of the hive in unceasing work for the birth of the new generation.
Imagination falters at the prospect of a human analogy to
this mysterious and superbly dedicated civilization of the bee;
but when we consider how the human instinct for race perpetuation
dominates life in all its normal and exaggerated and perverse
manifestations, there is ironic justice in the possibility that
this instinct, with the intellectual advance of women, may be
finally expressed after the manner of the bee, though it will
take centuries to break down the habits and customs of peoples
that bar the way to such a simply and scientifically ordered
civilization.
If Tesla had been even half as well informed in the biological
sciences as he was in the physical sciences, he probably would
not have seen a possible solution of human problems in the social
structure adapted to the limitations of an insect species which
can never hope to utilize tools, and draw upon natural forces
vastly exceeding their own energy sources, to work out their
destiny. And more important is the fact that the bees can never
hope to use advanced intellectual powers to improve their biological
status, as can the human race. With a better knowledge of biological
sciences he might have discovered that the physiological processes
that control perpetuation of the individual are indissolubly
linked to the processes that control the perpetuation of the
race, and that by utilizing as much biological knowledge and
spiritual insight, in designing a superman, as he utilized materialistic
engineering principles, he might have designed himself as a more
complete and potent superman, better adjusted to merging his
intellectual creations into the current life of the race through
a better understanding of human affairs.
Tesla tried to convince the world that he had succeeded in
eliminating love and romance from his life; but he did not succeed.
That failure (or perhaps from another aspect it was a success),
is the story of the secret chapter of Tesla's life.
TWENTY
THE most obvious outward characteristic of Tesla's life was
his proclivity for feeding pigeons in public places. His friends
knew he did it but never knew why. To the pedestrians on Fifth
Avenue he was a familiar figure on the plazas of the Public Library
at 42nd Street and St. Patrick's Cathedral at 50th Street. When
he appeared and sounded a low whistle, the blue- and brown- and
white-feathered flocks would appear from all directions, carpet
the walks in front of him and even perch upon him while he scattered
bird seed or permitted them to feed from his hand.
During the last three decades of his life, it is probable
that not one out of tens of thousands who saw him knew who he
was. His fame had died down and the generation that knew him
well had passed on. Even when the newspapers, once a year, would
break out in headlines about Tesla and his latest predictions
concerning scientific wonders to come, no one associated that
name with the excessively tall, very lean man, wearing clothes
of a bygone era, who almost daily appeared to feed his feathered
friends. He was just one of the strange individuals of whom it
takes a great many of varying types to make up a complete population
of a great metropolis.
When he started the practice, and no one knows just when that
was, he was always dressed in the height of fashion and some
of the world's most famous figures could frequently be seen in
his company and joining him in scattering the bird seed, but
there came a time when he paid less attention to his clothes,
and those he wore became more and more old fashioned.
Fifth Avenue after midnight is a far different thoroughfare
than the busy artery of human and vehicular traffic it is during
the day. It is deserted. One can walk for blocks and meet no
one except a policeman. On several occasions the author, by chance,
met Tesla on an after-midnight walk up Fifth Avenue, going toward
the library. Usually Tesla was quite willing to have one walk
with him and chat upon a street encounter during the day, but
on these after-midnight occasions he was definite about his desire
to be left alone. "You will leave me now," he would
say, bringing an abrupt end to a conversation hardly begun. The
natural assumption was that Tesla was engaged on a definite line
of thought and did not wish his mind to be diverted from its
concentration on some knotty scientific problem. How far this
was from the truth! And, as I learned much later, what a sacred
significance these midnight pilgrimages to feed the pigeons--which
would come to his call, even from their nocturnal roost--had
for him!
It was hard for almost everyone to understand why Tesla, engaged
in momentous scientific developments, working twice as many hours
as the average individual, could see his way clear to spend time
scattering bird seed. The Herald Tribune, in an editorial, once
stated: "He would leave his experiments for a time and feed
the silly and inconsequential pigeons in Herald Square."
It was a routine procedure in Tesla's offce, however, for
one of his secretaries to go down town on a given day each week
and purchase three pounds each of rape, hemp and canary seed.
This was mixed in his offce, and each day he took a small paper
bag filled with the seed and started on his rounds.
If, on any day, he was unable to make his pigeon-feeding rounds,
he would call a Western Union messenger boy, pay him his fee,
plus a dollar tip, and send him to feed the birds.
In addition to feeding the birds in the streets, Tesla took
care of pigeons in his rooms in the various hotels in which he
made his home. He usually had basket nests for from one to four
pigeons in his room and kept a cask of seed on hand to feed them.
The window to the room in which he kept these nests was never
closed.
Tesla became quite ill in his 40th Street offce, one day in
1921. He was unable to work and lay upon his couch. As the symptoms
became more alarming and there was a possibility that he might
not be able to return to his room in the Hotel St. Regis, he
summoned his secretary to give her an "important" message.
As he spoke the important message, he required the secretary
to repeat each phrase after him to make sure that no errors would
be made. This required repetition was a usual procedure with
him; but in this case he was so ill, practically prostrate, that
he seemed hardly to have energy enough to speak the message a
single time.
"Miss," he whispered, "Call Hotel St. Regis--"
"Yes sir," she responded, "Call Hotel St. Regis--"
"Get the housekeeper on the fourteenth floor--"
"Get the housekeeper on the fourteenth floor--"
"Tell her to go to Mr. Tesla's room--"
"Tell her to go to Mr. Tesla's room--"
"And feed the pigeon today--"
"And feed the pigeon today--"
"The white female with touches of light gray in its wings--"
"The white female with touches of light gray in its wings--"
"And to continue doing this--"
"And to continue doing this--"
"Until she receives further orders from me--"
"Until she receives further orders from me--"
"There is plenty of feed in Mr. Tesla's room."
"There is plenty of feed in Mr. Tesla's room."
"Miss," he pleaded, "this is very important.
Will you repeat the whole message to me so I can be sure you
have it correct."
"Call Hotel St. Regis; get the housekeeper on the fourteenth
floor. Tell her to go to Mr. Tesla's room and feed the pigeon
today, the white female with touches of light gray on its wings,
and continue doing this until she receives further orders from
me. There is plenty of feed in Mr. Tesla's room."
"Ah, yes," said Tesla, his eyes brightening as he
spoke, "the white one with touches of light gray in its
wings. And if I am not here tomorrow, you will repeat that message
then and every day until you get my further orders. Do it now,
Miss--it is very important."
Tesla's orders were always carried out to the letter and this
one particularly, since he had placed such unusual emphasis on
it. His secretary and the members of his staff felt that his
illness must be more serious than it seemed to be, since at a
time when he had a great many very serious problems on his hands
and he appeared to be on the verge of a siege of illness, the
more pressing situations were completely forgotten and his only
thought was of a pigeon. He must be delirious, so they thought.
Some months later Tesla failed one day to show up at his offce,
and when his secretary telephoned to his hotel, the inventor
informed her that he was all right, but that his pigeon was ill
and he dared not leave the room for fear she would need him.
He remained in his room for several days.
About a year later Tesla came to his offce earlier than usual
one day, and apparently very much disturbed. He carried a small
bundle in a tender manner on his bent arm. He telephoned to Julius
Czito, a machinist on whom he frequently depended to perform
unusual tasks, and asked him to come to the offce. Czito lived
in the suburbs. He told him briefly that the bundle contained
a pigeon that had died in his room at the hotel, and that he
desired to have it properly buried on Czito's property where
the grave could be cared for. Czito, in relating the incident
years afterward, said he was tempted, on leaving the offce, to
drop the package in the first garbage can he found; but something
caused him to desist and he took it to his home. Before he could
perform the burial, Tesla telephoned to his home and asked him
to return the package the next morning. How Tesla disposed of
it is not known.
In 1924 Tesla's financial condition fell to a very low level.
He was completely broke. He was unable to pay his rent and there
were some judgments against him for other unpaid bills. A deputy
sheriff appeared at his offce one afternoon to seize everything
in the offce to satisfy a judgment. Tesla managed to talk the
sheriff into delaying seizure. When the offcial had gone he took
stock of his situation. He had not paid his secretaries' wages
for two weeks and he now owed them for another fraction of a
week. He was entirely without funds in the bank. A search of
his safe disclosed that the only object of negotiable value was
the heavy gold Edison Medal presented to him by the American
Institute of Electrical Engineers in 1917.
"Miss, and Miss," he said, addressing the secretaries.
"This medal contains about one hundred dollars' worth of
gold. I will have it cut in half and give each of you one-half,
or one of you can take all of it and I will later pay the other."
The two young women, Miss Dorothy F. Skerritt and Miss Muriel
Arbus, refused to permit him either to damage or part with the
medal, and offered instead to aid him with the meager amounts
of cash they had in their purses, which offer he refused with
thanks. (A few weeks later the girls received their back salaries,
at $35 per week, and an additional two weeks' salary.)
A search of the cash drawer revealed a little over $5.00--all
the money he possessed.
"Ah! Miss," he said, "that will be enough to
buy the bird seed. I am all out of seed, so will you go down
town in the morning and purchase some and deliver it to my hotel."
Again calling his trusted aide, Czito (whom he was forced
to leave unpaid to the extent of $1,000), he put up to him the
problem of vacating the offce immediately. Within a few hours
the entire contents of the offces were stored in a near-by offce
building.
A short time later he was forced to leave his apartment in
the Hotel St. Regis. His bill had been unpaid for some time,
but the immediate cause was associated with pigeons. He had been
spending more time in his hotel room, which also became his offce,
and devoted more time to feeding pigeons. Great flocks of them
would come to his windows and into the rooms, and their dirt
on the outside of the building became a problem to the management
and on the inside to the maids. He sought to solve the problem
by putting the birds in a hamper and having George Scherff take
them to his Westchester home. Three weeks later, when first given
their freedom, they returned, one making the trip in half an
hour. Tesla was given his choice of ceasing to feed the pigeons
or leaving the hotel. He left.
He next made his home at the Hotel Pennsylvania. He remained
there a few years and the same situation, both as to bills and
pigeons, developed. He moved to the Hotel Governor Clinton--and
in about a year went through the same experience. He next moved
to the Hotel New Yorker, in 1933, where he spent the final ten
years of his life.
After midnight one night in the fall of 1937, Tesla started
out from the Hotel New Yorker to make his regular pilgrimage
to the Cathedral and the Library to feed the pigeons. In crossing
a street a couple of blocks from the hotel an accident happened,
how is unknown. In spite of his agility, he was unable to avoid
contact with a moving taxicab, and was thrown heavily to the
ground. He raised no question as to who was at fault, refused
medical aid, and asked merely to be taken to his hotel in another
cab.
Arriving at the hotel, he went to bed and had scarcely got
under the covers when he telephoned for his favorite messenger
boy, Kerrigan, from a near-by Western Union offce, gave him the
package of bird seed and directed him to complete the task which
he had started and the accident interrupted.
The next day, when it was apparent that he would be unable
to take his usual daily walks for some time to come, he hired
the messenger for six months to feed the pigeons every day. Tesla's
back had been severely wrenched in the accident, and three ribs
broken, but the full extent of his injuries will never be known
for, in keeping with his almost lifelong custom, he refused to
consult a doctor. Pneumonia developed but for this he also refused
medical aid. He was bedridden for some months, and was unable
to carry on his practice of feeding pigeons from his window;
and soon they failed to come.
In the spring of 1938 he was able to get up. He at once resumed
his pigeon-feeding walks on a much more limited scale, but frequently
had a messenger act for him.
This devotion to his pigeon-feeding task seemed to everyone
who knew him like nothing more than the hobby of an eccentric
scientist, but if they could have looked into Tesla's heart,
or read his mind, they would have discovered that they were witnessing
the world's most fantastic, yet tender and pathetic love affair.
Tesla, as a self-made superman, suffered from the limitations
of his maker. Endowed with an intelligence above the average
in both quality and quantity, and with some supernormal faculties,
he was able to erect a superman higher in stature than himself;
but the greater height was attained by sacrificing other dimensions,
and in this diminution of breadth and thickness existed a deffciency.
When he was a youth and his mind was in its most plastic and
formative stage, he adopted, as we have seen, the then prevalent
agnostic and materialistic view of life. Today science has emancipated
itself from slavery to either an antagonistic mysticism or materialism,
and is willing to consider both as harmonious parts of a comprehensive
approach to the understanding of Nature, but is conscious that
it has not yet learned how to manipulate or control the more
intangible factors upon which the mystics have builded their
structures of knowledge. Vast realms of human experience have
been rejected in all ages by scientists, of whatever name, who
failed to fit them in logical arrangement in their inadequate
and too simplified natural philosophies. By rejecting the phenomena
that lay beyond their intellectual abilities, the scientists
and philosophers did not eliminate them nor prevent their manifestations.
The phenomena so rejected, however, were given an academic home
by the ecclesiasts, who accepted them without understanding,
or hope of understanding, and thus incarcerated them in the foundation
of the religious mysteries where they served a useful purpose,
for upon an unknown it is possible to build a greater unknown.
The mystical experiences of the saints, of whatever faith,
are demonstrations of forces which are natural functions of the
phenomenon of life, expressed in varying degree in step with
the expanding unfoldment of the individual toward an advanced
state of evolution.
Tesla was an individual in an advanced state of development,
and there came to him experiences which he refused to accept
as experiments; accepting the benefits which came to him but
which transported them. This was true, for example, in the case
of the burst of revelation which came to him revealing scores
of tremendously valuable inventions--while he strolled in the
park at Budapest, and which differed only in degree and type,
but not in fundamental nature, from the blinding light which
came to Saul on the road to Damascus, and to others to whom illumination
has come by similar processes.
His materialistic concepts made him intellectually blind to
the strange phenomenon by which revelation, or illumination,
had come to him, but made him more keenly appreciative of the
value of that which was revealed. It must not be understood that
this revelation was a happenstance phenomenon of the moment,
for Tesla, endowed by Nature with an intellect capable of vast
unfoldment, had exerted almost superhuman efforts to achieve
that which was revealed to him, and the effort was not unassociated
with the result.
In a contrary direction, Tesla suppressed a tremendously large
or important realm of his life by the planned elimination of
love and romance from his thoughts and experience. Just as his
efforts to discover the physical secrets of Nature built up forces
that penetrated to the plane of revelation, so did his equally
tremendous effort to suppress love and romance build up forces,
beyond his control, that were operating to express themselves.
There was a parallel situation in his philosophy of natural phenomena,
in that he suppressed all spiritual aspects of Nature and confined
himself to the purely materialistic aspects.
Two forces, one of love and romance in his personal nature,
and the other the spiritual aspects of Nature in his philosophy,
as applied to his work, were incarcerated in a limbo of his personality,
seeking an outlet into the paradise of expression and manifestation.
And they obtained that outlet, expressing their nature by the
form of the manifestation; but Tesla failed to recognize them.
Tesla, rejecting the love of woman and thinking that he had engineered
a complete elimination of the problem of love, failed to excise
from his nature the capacity to love, and when this capacity
expressed itself, it did so by directing its energies through
a channel he left unguarded in planning the self-made superman.
The manifestation of these united forces of love and spirituality
resulted in a fantastic situation, probably without parallel
in human annals. Tesla told me the story; but if I did not have
a witness who assured me that he heard exactly what I heard,
I would have convinced myself that I had had nothing more tangible
than a dream experience. It was the love story of Tesla's life.
In the story of his strange romance, I saw instantly the reason
for those unremitting daily journeys to feed the pigeons, and
those midnight pilgrimages when he wished to be alone. I recalled
those occasions when I had happened to meet him on deserted Fifth
Avenue and, when I spoke to him, he replied, "You will now
leave me." He told his story simply, briefly and without
embellishments, but there was still a surging of emotion in his
voice.
"I have been feeding pigeons, thousands of them, for
years; thousands of them, for who can tell--
"But there was one pigeon, a beautiful bird, pure white
with light gray tips on its wings; that one was different. It
was a female. I would know that pigeon anywhere.
"No matter where I was that pigeon would find me; when
I wanted her I had only to wish and call her and she would come
flying to me. She understood me and I understood her.
"I loved that pigeon.
"Yes," he replied to an unasked question. "Yes,
I loved that pigeon, I loved her as a man loves a woman, and
she loved me. When she was ill I knew, and understood; she came
to my room and I stayed beside her for days. I nursed her back
to health. That pigeon was the joy of my life. If she needed
me, nothing else mattered. As long as I had her, there was a
purpose in my life.
"Then one night as I was lying in my bed in the dark,
solving problems, as usual, she flew in through the open window
and stood on my desk. I knew she wanted me; she wanted to tell
me something important so I got up and went to her.
"As I looked at her I knew she wanted to tell me--she
was dying. And then, as I got her message, there came a light
from her eyes--powerful beams of light.
"Yes," he continued, again answering an unasked
question, "it was a real light, a powerful, dazzling, blinding
light, a light more intense than I had ever produced by the most
powerful lamps in my laboratory.
"When that pigeon died, something went out of my life.
Up to that time I knew with a certainty that I would complete
my work, no matter how ambitious my program, but when that something
went out of my life I knew my life's work was finished.
"Yes, I have fed pigeons for years; I continue to feed
them, thousands of them, for after all, who can tell--"
There was nothing more to say. We parted in silence. The talk
took place in a corner of the mezzanine in the Hotel New Yorker.
I was accompanied by William L. Laurence, science writer of the
New York Times. We walked several blocks on Seventh Avenue before
we spoke.
No longer was there any mystery to the midnight pilgrimages
when he called the pigeons from their niches in the Gothic tracery
of the Cathedral, or from under the eaves of the Greek temple
that houses the Library--pursuing, among the thousands of them
. . . "For after all, who can tell . . .?"
It is out of phenomena such as Tesla experienced when the
dove flew out of the midnight darkness and into the blackness
of his room and flooded it with blinding light, and the revelation
that came to him out of the dazzling sun in the park at Budapest,
that the mysteries of religion are built. But he comprehended
them not; for, if he had not suppressed the rich mystical inheritance
of his ancestors that would have brought enlightenment, he would
have understood the symbolism of the Dove.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
MUCH valuable aid has been received from many sources in the
preparation of this volume. For this helpful co-operation my
thanks are due to:
Sava N. Kosanovic, Minister of State of Yugoslavia, and Tesla's
nephew, for making available books, family records, transcripts
of records, pictures, and for correcting the manuscript of many
chapters; and to his secretary, Miss Charlotte Muzar;
Miss Dorothy Skerritt and Miss Muriel Arbus, Tesla's secretaries;
and George Scherff and Julius C. Czito, business associates;
Mrs. Margaret C. Behrend, for the privilege of reading correspondence
between her husband and Tesla; and to Dr. W. B. Earle, Dean of
Engineering, Clemson Agricultural College, for pictures and other
material from the Behrend Collection in the college library;
Mrs. Agnes Holden, daughter of the late Robert Underwood Johnson,
ambassador, and editor of the Century Magazine; Miss Marguerite
Merington; Mrs. Grizelda M. Hobson, widow of the late Rear Admiral
Hobson; Waldemar Kaempffert, Science Editor of the New York Times;
Professor Emeritus Charles F. Scott, Department of Electrical
Engineering, Yale University; Hans Dahlstrand, of the Allis Chalmers
Manufacturing Co.; Leo Maloney, Manager of the Hotel New Yorker;
and W. D. Crow, architect of the Tesla tower, for reminiscences,
data, or helpful conversations concerning their contacts with
Tesla;
Florence S. Hellman, Chief of the Bibliographic Division,
Library of Congress; Olive E. Kennedy, Research Librarian of
the Public Information Center, National Electric Manufacturers
Association; A. P. Peck, Managing Editor of the Scientific American;
Myrta L. Mason, and Charles F. Pflaging, for bibliographic aid;
G. Edward Pendray and his associates in the Westinghouse Electric
and Manufacturing Co., and C. D. Wagoner and his associates in
the General Electric Co., for correcting, or reading and making
helpful suggestions in connection with many chapters;
William L. Laurence, science writer of the New York Times,
and Bloyce Fitzgerald, for exchange of data;
Randall Warden; William Spencer Bowen, President of the Bowen
Research Corp.; G. H. Clark, of the Radio Corporation of America;
Kenneth M. Swezey, of Popular Science; Mrs. Mabel Fleischer and
Carl Payne Tobey, who have aided in a variety of ways;
Colliers--The National Weekly; The American Magazine; the
New York World-Telegram and the General Electric Co., for permission
to quote copyrighted material, for which credit is given where
quoted; and
Peggy O'Neill Grayson, my daughter, for extended secretarial
service.
To all the foregoing I extend my sincere thanks.
John J. O'Neill
Freeport, L. I.
New York
July 15, 1944
Nikola Tesla
Science
& Mathematics
The
Uncle Taz Library
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